R A Ruadh

At first I thought

At first I thought it was a miracle.

The fact she was born at all,

after so many tiny intimations and suggestions of life

had come to nothing.

She wasn’t much of a sleeper though,

or at least not when I needed to be.

If the CIA wanted to perfect sleep deprivation torture

they could skip the experiments.

We had it down to an art.

At first I thought it was a miracle.

Her bio-dad left,

or at least was escorted out by the cops,

and I believed life could begin again.

At first I thought it was a miracle.

How far power and perversion can go.

She and I became an experiment

or at least what ten years, eleven custody cases, appeals,

the Supreme Courts of two countries established

as jurisprudence taught to this day in law schools.

At first I thought it was a miracle.

We still have PTSD eighteen years later.

Somehow we find our lives.

She has children now, my grandchildren.

The experiments are different

(though the sleep deprivation training helps).

Every time they smile, learn a word, sing a song,

exclaim with wonder that the latest mud pie experiment worked,

and read along with me in their favourite books

I know it was a miracle.

Camera Obscura

Word by word

Thought by thought

She splinters into fragments

Her world is a kaleidescope

In constant motion

Sometimes taunting her pen

With dancing reflections

Just beyond her mind’s fingertips

Every sentence of every day

Is an experiment

Capturing moats and phrases of life as it floats by

For her

For him

For us

All our love is not enough glue

To match together the

Shattered     scattered   

    Pieces

            Of her

        Mind

But it allows for glimmering moments

Of connections and clarity

And the occasional miracle

Nitric oxide is a colorless gas with the formula NO. Nitric oxide is a free radical, i.e., it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its chemical formula.

Nitric oxide

Forty-seven years later

I still remember your eyes slithering and crawling

up and down my body

as I stood there in the chemistry lab

Your privileged football captain sneer

snaked past the corners of your mouth

and on up your face to your cold eyes

while my friend stood beside you

Her idea to get me a date for the prom

had prompted you to make an person inspection

a prize opportunity

for a sophomore science nerd like me

Without looking away from

from your proposed prom possession

and deeply bored with the entire procedure

you asked my friend not me

So do I get her for the night

or do I get her for a steady

You get don’t get her at all

I replied

while carefully not crushing

the test tubes in my hands

Turning back to my experiment

I heard you choke with shock

as my friend swallowed her laughter

caught between disgust and good manners

I became something of a hero

for snubbing your lewd entitlement so easily

although truth to tell

I just didn’t feel any chemistry

Forty-seven years later

I still remember your eyes slithering and crawling

up and down my body

and the satisfying sound of your ego shattering on the floor