Inventors, by Michael Blumenthal

Inventors

Michael Blumenthal

 

Imagine being the first to say: surveillance …

– Howard Nemerov

 

“Imagine being the first to say: surveillance,”

the mouth taking in air like a swimmer, the tongue

light as an astronaut, gliding across the roof

of the mouth, the eyes burning like the eyes of Fleming

looking at mold and thinking: penicillin.

 

Imagine Franklin holding his key that dark night,

the clouds rolling across the sky’s roof

like a poet’s tongue, the air heavy with some

unnamed potential, the whole thing suspended

from a string like a vocal cord waiting to say:

electricity.

 

Or imagine digging for shale in some dull Oklahoma,

how the ground is a parched throat waiting for moisture,

and you all derricky and impatient, knowing something

you have yet no name for might rise and surprise you.

Imagine being the first to say: petroleum.

 

Some night, dry as an old well and speechless

beneath a brilliant moon, think of Heisenberg

taking his ruler to the world for a measure

and finding, in the measuring, an irrevocable changing.

Imagine being the first to say, with confidence:

uncertainty.

 

It goes on like this always. A poet stops in the woods

to clear his throat, and out comes: convolvulus.

A biologist rolls over during the night to hold

her husband, thinking: peristalsis. A choreographer

watches the sunrise over Harlem, whispering: tour-jette,

ronde-de-jambe.

 

Just think of it–

your tongue rolling over the first pharmacopoeia

like a new lover, the shuddering thrill of it,

the way the air parts in front of your mouth, widening

the world in its constant uncertainty. Go on.

 

Let your mind wander. Imagine being the first to say:

I love you, oregano, onomatopoeia.

 

Just imagine it.

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