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Poem of the Week at Just Buffalo Literary Center


In anticipation of my participation at ArtPark next weekend, poet-curator R.D. Pohl has selected a pair of sonnets as Poem of the Week at Just Buffalo Literary Center: "Boron" and "Nihonium." These two poems are both from my new collection Periodic Boyfriends -- as you've probably guessed from the titles -- but before that, "Boron" appeared in City Brink, Poet Lore, and as a shortlisted poem in the Erbacce Prize booklet a couple of years ago. "Nihonium," meanwhile, appeared in Many Nice Donkeys. I'm always pleased to see a poem get a second life but at this point, Boron's got five lives already. So let's not ignore "Nihonium" another minute.


Nihonium

What constitutes bona fide chemistry? Is it electric? Seismic? Magnetic?

What laws might apply from sexology?

The dynamic or the theoretic?

Does one’s physical form have properties

one could reclassify as reagents?

Should I test out various theories

that challenge bygone rules of engagement?

I prematurely abandoned the lab

where all-nighter research gets computed.

You could‘ve been both my probe and my slab

of meat. Such facts cannot be disputed.

As I type this sonnet, I sort of wish I could put us back in that petri dish.


First published in Many Nice Donkeys, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (August 2022). Images courtesy of Pixabay.

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