Tulips In A Conical Flask Poem by Gayathri Seetharam

Title: Tulips in a conical flask
Labour as a tulip arrays its flame
Thus Karen Volkman begins her short poem
And I tell myself that unless I become once again, a successful and chemical engineer making paycheques
It is going to be a case of "Love's Labour Lost";
I have set the tulips in a conical flask
And I pray that Prof. Jane Phillips' assessment of my personality as an engineer with pizzaz
Who should be at the centre of a razzmatazz
Becomes a canonical statement in Toronto.