<addonizio's "physics"> 2006-08-16.12:29 p.m. Physics Kim Addonizio In the darkness of the booth, you have to find the slot blindly and fumble the quarter in. The black shade goes up. Now there's a naked woman dancing before you and you're looking at her knees, then raising your eyes to the patch of wiry hair which she obligingly parts with two fingers while her other hand palms her body from breast to hip and it's you doing it, for a second you're touching her like that and when you lift your face to hers she's not gazing into space as you expected but looking back, right at you, with an expression that says I love you, I belong to you compl-- but then the barrier descends. You shove another quarter in but the thing has to close down before slowly widening again like a pupil adjusting to the absence of light and by the time it does you've lost her. She's moved on to the next low window holding someone's blurred face, and another woman is coming nearer under the stage lights and in the mirrors, looking so happy to see you trapped there like some poor fish in a plastic baggie that will finally be released into a small bowl with a ceramic castle and a few colored rocks, and you open your mouth just like a fish waiting for the flakes of food, understanding nothing of what causes them to rain down upon you. You can feel your hunger sharpening as she thrusts herself over and over into the air betweeen you. And now, unbelievably, there comes into your mind not the image of fucking her but an explanation you heard once of what vast distances exist between any two electrons. Suppose, the scientist said, the atom were the size of an orange; then imagine that orange as big as the earth. The electrons inside it would be only the size of cherries. Cherries, you think, and inserting your quarter you see one sitting on an ice floe in the Antarctic, a pinprick of blood, and another in a village in north Africa being rolled on the tongue of a dusty child while the dancer shakes her breasts at you, displaying nipples you know you'll never bite into in this lifetime; all you can do is hold tight to the last useless coins and repeat to yourself that they're solid, they're definitely solid, you can definitely feel them. back /& forth /& frosting names are often sad