By Andres David LopezI registered, and found
my classroom washed in light.
Her syllabus attractive
my instructor is radioactive.
Black hair and white skin
Black lines frame her eyes.
Irradiated pearls hang around her neck.
She examines me, Madame Curie
with test tubes in her pocket.
She injects me with a tracer
wanting a view of my insides.
Her lips emit particles
in waves with high frequencies
alpha, beta, fast neutron
anthologies.
I swallow them whole
as my electrons are unleashed.
Quarantined for days
my skin burning
I am dizzy, vomiting
and tortured by acute
narrative syndrome
and blood-soaked pages.
The workshops are plated with lead
and intent is debated in circles.
I see Flour Beetles all around me
content with grays and half-lives.
They devour or sex each other down
for apoptosis and decay.
But I won’t decay.
She leans against the lockers
in the hall we are fatally exposed.
I thank her for the poison
and my instructor glows.
