Engineering

Some September I remember you peering

Into my chemical textbook, but you had already succumbed

To your poetry people, and continuously reeked

Of stale coffee and sex musk.

Walnut Trail apartment complex needed

An artist, I suppose.  So, Georgia O’Keefe

(in all her vagina-bloom glory) traveled

From your cramped Eldridge Hall to join my Elvis

Hip-swinging clock on the wall.

Verse is not logical and safe

Like my sacred books of algebraic equations and formulaic lists.

You argued – you found ART within the urine-colored

Pages of Chemical Engineering 101.

Enjoy your magical realism –

The scratchy dirt-hued carpet remains, and O’Keefe still hangs.

While Elvis ticks off seconds, I’m taking my texts literally only to find

One cold-foiled sandwich when

There should’ve been two.