For Chemistry
As May yawned with its rain,
I sat in the final chemistry lecture
of my undergraduate career,
three years of the subject—
general, organic, and biochemistry—
the nerves of picking a seat always in the second row
the claws of each grade reviewing notes until my eyes throbbed
naming our lab group Humerus inking faces onto test tubes
our eyes meeting when a professor said a diagram was simplified
the weekly labs and reports troubleshooting spectrophotometers
waiting during Western blots penning polyatomic ions
sketching the arrows of mechanisms writing out pathways
when I said it’d take forever to understand
the math and logic of chemistry
to appreciate its courses
ending with a fifty minute lecture.
Yet as June stretches with its gray skies,
the few days in my extracurricular
chemistry lab seem too slight
to encompass the subject’s importance
but also too much to heal the callouses
it took to climb this far up.
10 thoughts on "For Chemistry"
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Love the yawning and stretching words to portray the end of a semester/year. Your dedication and passion shine through,
Might be the first and only time I see the phrase “troubleshooting spectrophotometers” in a poem!
Haha, that is very specific phrase. Glad you enjoyed the piece!
Love the different font and shape for the middle section and, Love the use of yawning May and stretching June to mark time.
Thank you! I’m glad the form was able to accomplish what it did.
I love the image of the months coming to life too!
Thank you!
A great poetic summary of academic life!
Thank you!
The font changes aren’t just aesthetic but effective, as well. Something about the smaller words describing tidbits from the semester feels right. Wonderful work! (This is also making me cautiously excited for my chemistry class this coming semester!)
Ah, thank you, Katrina! And cautiously excited is the right way to approach chemistry, I think. No promises on how useful it’ll be, but let me know if you end up needing some help in that upcoming class.