Schrödinger’s Love Story
What love story doesn’t last 100 years/Even one night trysts/have staying power/Even if you don’t/know the name or couldn’t pick/them out the crowd/even when you don’t/keep count/the body keeps the score/ancient technology built by generations/upon generations of love/or something like it/That may in turn create/new bodies/or not/impacts in its daily existence/the bodies around it/We are/each of us/a small solar system/in a small solar system/in a small solar system/in galaxies upon galaxies of love/Love as in creativity/as in a force of creation/as in destruction/cycle/what is a hundred years if not one long day/One long day in one long year in one long lifetime/life is short/only if you don’t believe/it is the longest thing you will ever do/As in life is being lived/even if/when you are dead/As in you are dead/and alive/right now/As in if you open the box/you will find more than two of yourself/they will all be love.
Alessandra Nysether-Santos is a writer, educator, and artist living in Florida. They received Honorable Mention in the 2024 Jaki Shelton Green Poetry Performance Prize. Alessandra has poems published in places like the NC Literary Review, Ate Mais: An Anthology of Latinx Futurisms, and the Space538 Poetry Hotline. When they aren’t creating, performing, or wandering in the woods, Alessandra is teaching comprehensive, affirming sex ed to folks of all ages. Their first chapbook, fat magic, is forthcoming this year from Garden Party collective.