Chemotaxis Reigns!

     

1975 twenty something

        Last week at one of our virtual events, a storyteller read a poem she wrote when she took an anatomy class years ago. The poem was filled with the names of the bones of the head – and the words sounded so erotic! We were all fanning ourselves by the time she was finished. And I was reminded of a much lesser poem filled with biology terms - a poem I wrote one day in college when I should have been studying. And here is the story that goes with the poem.

       During my entire senior year of college, there was a guy I hung out with at the library before and between classes most days. After a while I realized I liked him a lot. Sometimes we hung out at the bars or college parties together too. It was clear though, I liked him a whole lot more than he liked me.

       Heavy sigh.

       And one Saturday morning, when I should have been studying my histology notes, my mind kept drifting to plans for that evening. I was going out somewhere with friends, I can’t remember the occasion now, but I can picture a bar – maybe that's all we were going to do, hang out at the PM - Park Meadow, or Allens or somewhere. My young man was going to be there too.

       So, I sat at my Grandmother’s dining room table with my textbooks and notebooks open that morning. The plan was to study all day. But the histology terms kept mingling with thoughts of the evening, and that, you know, was the perfect mix for the creation of... a poem!

       The day soon became devoted to the creation of lines that rhymed, anatomical terms swirling with romance. Ah, and you know it is so sad because I was not even a silly teenager at that point. No, I was a goofy twenty-something.

       I liked the finished product – it was so clever

       That evening, I took a ragged folded piece of paper from my pocket, trying to underplay my excitement, and I showed the poem to my young man. He was a biology major too, and even though he was not taking histology that semester, he could surely have appreciated the wittiness of the rhymes, the genius of my ability to turn a phrase. But the poem did not turn his mind to thoughts of romance, alas, or even acknowledgment of what a fun person I was.

His loss.

One day three years ago I wrote up a story about an awkward gift I had once given a guy. (Hey! that one can be my next post!) And afterward, the memory of the histology poem came to mind. I did not have a copy of it anywhere, but the more I thought about it, the more I was able to reconstruct. Proof that I am still so tickled by my cleverness after all these years! After googling a few vaguely familiar terms, the entire poem was back! And here it is today:

Through the interstitial lamellae

That have too often clouded the view

In a distant far off osteon

I first set eyes on you

Though others lay down matrices

Creating a diversion

They could never osteolyze

The desire for my canal Haversian

Tonight, at last chemotaxis reigns

And all my dreams come true

For in the nearest Volkmann’s canal

We shall have a rendezvous

Tonight we meet and as the saying goes

Rightly when two lovers meet

Together we shall

Anastomose

       Well, I did not promise you it was good poetry!

      And not even a good poem could have helped me get the guy. Not that it was an awkward gift – for our whole beyond-the-library life was awkward.

      But the poem made me smile back then. And it still does.

20200818 65 Chemotaxis Reigns