waking in the morning soaked in sweat        slipping through death’s net

           writing in the dark        into the deeper structure        she is crystalline        he is 

graphite        imagining a poem structured on dna        replicating the constituent

 material of chromosomes        the messenger of genetic information        each letter 

a different protein        adenine        cytosine        guanine        thymine        acids 

forming crystals in air        instructions for the manufacture of proteins        rhyme 

scheme of the Ur poem        making h rhyme with a        letting c rhyme with g    

intricately detailed fabrications        shaped by the science of someone else’s 

inquiry     imagining her into his words        writing her away        poetry as a kind 

of forgetting        being played by another music        enjambment of past tense and 

present sense       constant undoing        being read into         more than one place or 

one time        persisting in misinterpretation        across from the graveyard        

walking in the late afternoon        looking into the diffracted sunlight

NICHOLAS POWER is a founding member of the Meet the Presses collective, and has performed with the sound poetry ensemble Alexander’s Dark Band. His collection of poetry, Melancholy Scientist, is coming out in the spring of 2014 from Tekst Editions. His No Poems were published in Paris by Battered Press. He has several books with his own Gesture Press including Writing on Water, Swing Rhythms and The Steady Pull of a Curious Dog. His poems from the manuscript Dancing with Gravity are in issues of Draft, Rampike and www.ottawater.ca.