A map on tissue. A mass of wire. Electricity of the highest order.
Somewhere in this live tangle, scientists discovered—
like shipmates on the suddenly-round earth—
a new catalog of synaptic proteins
presenting how memory is laid down:
At the side of the transmitting neuron
an electrical signal arrives and releases chemical packets.
What I had imagined as “nothing” are a bunch of conversing
squirts
remaking flat into intimate.
Copyright © 2015 by Kimiko Hahn. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 24, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.