Repulsive Theory

Little has been made 
of the soft, skirting action 
of magnets reversed, 
while much has been 
made of attraction. 
But is it not this pillowy 
principle of repulsion 
that produces the 
doily edges of oceans 
or the arabesques of thought? 
And do these cutout coasts 
and incurved rhetorical beaches 
not baffle the onslaught 
of the sea or objectionable people 
and give private life 
what small protection it's got? 
Praise then the oiled motions 
of avoidance, the pearly 
convolutions of all that 
slides off or takes a 
wide berth; praise every 
eddying vacancy of Earth, 
all the dimpled depths 
of pooling space, the whole 
swirl set up by fending-off— 
extending far beyond the personal, 
I'm convinced— 
immense and good 
in a cosmological sense: 
unpressing us against 
each other, lending 
the necessary never
to never-ending.