The Hunch I can’t watch John McEnroe I want him to win so much he’s brilliant but oh so volatile and I know that if I care I’ll doom him if I watch he’ll surely lose his insouciance his touch But that is magical thinking and obviously absurd and when I’m kneeling at the Communion rail how primitive is it when the vicar murmurs Body of Christ His Blood Everybody knows when you’re dead you’re dead and that’s just how it goes there’s no such thing as an immortal soul and nothing’s changed by a prayer you’ve said Yet the demonstration of particle physics that observation switches quantum states the butterfly effect e equals mc squared thermodynamics’ law re energy being a constant able like the body to be transformed but not destroyed hint how this human hunch is relevant a clue left by God that maybe he’s here for are we not energy made briefly conscious and those spasms Eternity’s voice in our ear?
Nicole Lee was born in Kuala Lumpur and educated at Malvern and Oxford. She has worked as a banker in Hong Kong and London and now lives in Wandsworth, works in Kew and writes poetry. She has been published in various online journals and long-listed in the National Poetry Competition.
Amethyst Review 