To my dear Senator, dear President

Dear Senator,
When I walked into the Barnes store
I felt noble finding your book on the shelf
touching the soft pages from your father’s dreams
ex-post wondering how they’re bursting at seams
And what binds books and who bound this one
and what am I bound to upon reading
running the thumb along my spine
When I got home from the bookstore
I closed my thesis on nanowires
and opened a micro-soft word doc
a malleable tabula rasa
Then a phone call came -- brrring brrring
What did it bring
I forget what they said but I felt content
because I knew I was no longer on content
I just had to deliver this baby
and so they had called me maybe
I can focus on delivery
Yes I can - do that
On the stage
my palms were sure sweaty
My godmother and all of them watching over me
Can I keep my cool
though my palms are small swimming pools
Stand tall, don’t fall
Get through that first line
and when I was thru
I stood tall and I delivered that wind
which your light grew quickly into a tree
on our empathy deficit
Later someone’s remark
that you never stopped recycling that stump speech
But wait, what tree was cut down
because the story ain’t over
until we actually decide if recycling is bad
I don’t know how many trees were logged
in the building of this nation
but I know you weren't standing on stumpy
we were standing on a stage
And you the junior senator were talking
to us seniors preparing on walking
away from our caps or towards the empathy gap
Perhaps a walk in the woods
to recycle what would be or review who could be
the woodsy change we want to see
and all the roots underneath.

Dear President,
I dreamt of audacity on my single bed
Enough lead in my pencil to stencil
enough characters to form a foundation
while I thumbed the pages of my dictionary
Your hope was dope
and my ear lobes were smoky
with whispers from my father
saying come back to Jersey
And then ten years later
when I saw my father’s chest fall
for the last time, I was too tall
to look down on him
Just back from the land of ice
did I feel the fire of the Holy Spirit
laying between him and mom
her gift a woolen dearth
his a slideshow of mother earth
So life is like a blanket then? -- too short
and it sure ain’t no sport
When his final breath did exhort
it was short on time, but long on ideas
I’d like to now believe he whispered
confidence into those who would
confidently concoct vaccines
for a world that desperately needed them
cause I’m still recycling bits about him
My daddy, his dreams do come true
Look, just another five years forward
I’m an LTD soundsystem
dancing like a fool at weddings
we are making it happen
Of course I am still empathy gapping
But I feel like I finally have a big capacity
for hope but can I cope
with this feeling of loss, of grief,
of relief at the sight of a bench
by the side of his grave
to hold me up as I cast a reel
how will I feel
the capacity of oceans
How will I re-read a book
How will I comb a beach
to find 三体 Sān tǐ
The three body problems:
First, three sons who lost their fathers
1. You
2. Me
3. ____ (fill in the blank)
Second, three suns in the sky who found their way to me
1. Polaris, the North Star
2. A single star in the galaxy M83
3. Sol
our sun which has been nurturing me 
since before I was born
And so I can finally and brightly see 
that I don't necessarily need 
to solve these three body problems
I can just know that these bodies all have different gravity
They have all tugged on the mass of my heart
sometimes heavy, sometimes light
but always omniscient of their infinite omnipotence
With a dying father as a dying sun
energy is constant, entropy increases
The three laws were always our body’s problem
The sun is still the solution
Now close your eyes
And hope