GRAPHENE LOVE POTION NO. 9

DANIELLE MITCHELL

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It’s time we won’t have. Because one through eight were wasted on lesser men. Last call bar flies & fragile marathoners, scientists addicted to the fourth dimension. Graphene doesn’t grow on trees, but it could be burned from them. The moment before the breakthrough my laboratory will be more damp, abandoned train car than cerulean motherboard. We will write about humanity in scholarly journals, we will say it was such a thing. A marvel, a boon. These are the days before we realize we can make billion-dollar-Graphene from dog feces. Before I learn the baking my oven doesn’t get hot enough for. You are a fantastic “E” word. When I turn atomic to you we fall onto the table a mangle of jerks & averages. I’m most happy when I’m between Californium & Fermium. Someday I will be as useful as a Sunday, as the links in the chicken wire that say we will make it past the breach of this atmosphere. Elevator going up. But I’m afraid to look.

In the clear dark moon-

scape a pair of not-birds fall

apart like snow.

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Originally published in the New Orleans Review, Issue 41 (2015)