sulfur in the morning (cla 119)

Sulfur in the morning
CLA 119

- to Christopher L. Amos (October 25, 1949 - December 6, 1999)

the snow of winter fell on a fresh dirt mound,
where they buried you in december.

                                                                                                                                       snow,
                                                                                                                                       white like flakes of
                                                                                                                acetylsalicylic acid left in piles and drifts -- on filter paper -- in your lab.
                                                                                                                 it'll always be your lab.

                                                                                                 tears,
                                                                                                 salty like those sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric
                                                                                                 cocktails that you used to make,
                                                                                                  run down my cheeks.

i'd like to think that it isn't real,
and i'm sorry for all those homeworks i missed when i was in your class.

                                                                                                                                       fragile, like a 19/22 glass distillation kit -
                                                                                                                                       so are the illusions of the young.
                                                                                                                                      five years since you wrote a letter for a sixteen year old kid,
                                                                                                                                      and i now walk down the halls of university,
                                                                                                                                       expecting to step on one of your surprises.

                     contact explosive
                     gun powder
                     brass pennies
                     water plant field trips
                     take home finals
and i admit, i've forgotten all about benroulli's principle and boyle's law --
moles of this and moles of that,
you taught me more than i ever knew i learned.

                   neat blackboard writing that i didn't know i'd miss
                   until i got to college.
                   final exams that keep me from coming to say "thank you" one more time.
but i know you understand.

have i done you justice as a teacher?
                  been the kind of student you deserved?
                  the years in your lab
frozen in my mind like one of those grapes you liked to dip in liquid nitrogen.
                   avagadro's numbers of memories -- and the things i'll never know.

did you write that letter for the kid who stood in front of you,
or the person yet to be?

someone irreversibly changed for having known you.
and though in the cold of winter you were buried,
you are far from being gone.

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