A History of Biophysics
Ken Poyner
Once a drawer of ghosts is filled
I shut it and connect the latch
So it will not slide unattended open.
Ghosts need their routine. So I fold
And catalogue. I note, about each,
Its circumstance of special attributes:
So many idiosyncrasies – but enough
Idiosyncrasies pooled, and the lot of them
Make a colossal ordinary. I cannot
Come to that conclusion too soon.
Each ghost for a while deserves
A modicum of respect. But it is
Inevitable – tray after tray of ghosts,
Each perhaps alone a haunting of merit;
Taken together in their great weightless mass
A background hum that is just the noise
Of the Universe coming, the Universe going.
It is my routine, and I know it.
Ken’s collections of short fiction, “Constant Animals” and “Avenging Cartography”, and his latest collections of poetry, “Victims of a Failed Civics” and “The Book of Robot”, can be obtained from Barking Moose Press. He serves as bewildering eye-candy at his wife’s power lifting affairs. His poetry lately has been sunning in Analog, Asimov’s, Poet Lore, and his fiction has yowled in Spank the Carp, Red Truck, and Café Irreal. www.kpoyner.com.