Emily Osborne

Electron Cloud

For D.A.W (1981-2000)

In old-school models, the atom was fixed

as a solar system, each electron ball

orbited its vacuum-bound nucleus.

Now some say empty space doesn’t exist,

particles pop into being ex nihilo,

push outward past an atom’s porous edge.

It’s like the living and the dead.

Souls used to circuit the heavens, aloof

to our searching, waiting for company.

Now the brain’s last radiation slowly

dissipates through the universe, life’s

energy leaking through the body’s hearse.

But those who’ve watched death know secrets atomic

and vast. After the second failed heart transplant

and you’d passed, you gripped your mother’s hand.

There was no nineteenth birthday, no

university, but we’ve held on to that:

fingers pressing through this mortal boundary.

Are you there? we’ve asked, like rattled guests

at séances. Hope pushing outward as we stare

past curtains, into galaxies. Hope growing

thinner – just rough skin rubbed between fingers.

Thinner than ghost whispers. Thinner

than a vacuum’s blisters.

Emily Osborne’s poetry, fiction, and translations are published in The Paris Review, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, The Windhover and elsewhere. Her books include THE SKALDS (W. W. Norton, 2026/2027) and Safety Razor (Gordon Hill Press, 2023). Emily has a PhD in Old Norse Literature from the University of Cambridge.