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A poem by Nicholas Laughlin

First published in Zarf 11, 2018


Because the World Is Round

What colour is a pound of neutrons?     Why do nosebleeds stop?     If you went to the bottom of the ocean and cut open a fibre-optic cable and looked into the end of it, would the light be bright enough to blind you?     Do animals know or care if we are naked?     Are roses somehow not the same as other flowers?     How many potato chips would it take to stop a bullet?     Is existential dread a natural phenomenon?
     Can snakes move their eggs?     If you drink a shot of vodka after brushing your teeth, do you have to brush them again?     Do famous people introduce themselves to each other?     What kind of gosling is this?     If you were falling in an endless pit could you fall asleep?     What is the coldest star we know about?     Is there such a thing as being too small to fit through an exit?     What is a “leopard head town”?     If a helicopter could hover for 24 hours straight, would the entire earth rotate beneath it?     What happens if you watch a movie in your dream that you’ve never seen before?     Why don’t we sneeze in our sleep?     If I held some soil and a seed in my bare hand for long enough, could I grow a tree?

 
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