Cells Poem by Diane Furtney

"With enough chips, everything's going to be aware of us:
the door knobs, the stove, probably the chairs at the coffee shop..."
—A friend complaining in 2012 about excesses of the cyber age

The pinched, defiant woman, middle-aged
—at a local ceramics exhibit—enraged

at everyone new or grown, revealed in
the first three minutes of conversation

three things: 1) that she suffers
from fibromyalgia, "treated only with herbs or

teas, " her up-chinned expression
slightly pleading but awaiting affirmation

of her frail and necessary superiority;
2) being told I'm interested in cell biology,

that she doesn't "understand cells"
and "can't believe" her body's made of cells;

3) that she disapproves of, unforgivingly,
anyone who fails her needs in any way

—turning dismissively, in my mid-sentence.
Questions about a wooden, dense,

commodiously chip-laden, flat-stare,
human-registering coffeehouse chair

would be these: 1) Can it divert that woman
from her compartmented, ligninlined

fears? 2) Can it talk to me,
if I like, with a Brobdingnagian vocabulary?

3) Can it teach me something
while being civil and interesting?

If yes, what do I care whether
the dear thing has a wet cell structure?

In SCIENCE AND, FutureCycle Press, Copyright © 2014 Diane Furtney