Jennifer Molnar
I.
Though considered a stable element,
when exposed to air for long periods of time
copper takes on a greenish tint. Reacts
with oxygen almost as if breathing—
II.
How do I name this corrosion? What chemical
interface breaks open the pure/volatile
atomic world and seduces electrons loosely
spinning in the outer rings of orbit,
or else shrugs them off carelessly as
a caress from a lover one plans to leave,
even as or because the touch floods nerve
endings, barely subcutaneous?
III.
The valence electrons located in the outer-most
shell of an atom are responsible for that atom’s chemical
properties, much as one’s most recent interactions
shape the types of reactions that occur
during any subsequent interaction.
IV.
Copper is easily malleable.
The alchemical symbol for copper is the same
as the universal symbol for female.
V.
Your associate at the bar, already balancing
two women—each not his second/current wife—
bought me a drink and asked Irish or Scottish?
Though my hair was dyed to copper
I humored him and replied Both which was not a lie.
He went on to tell me with a conspiratorial wink
that he left his first wife for a Scottish girl,
one of those wild redheads. You swore in pain
when I turned unexpectedly and nipped your face.
VI.
Isotopes are created when an atom gains or loses
atomic mass in the form of electrons—
how often have I modeled such behavior,
clinging to another in an effort to create a semblance
of wholeness, and in doing so, disrupted and redefined boundaries?
VII.
How can two adjoining valence shells be satisfied
sharing electrons with the knowledge that the coupling
can be easily split with the introduction of an unexpected catalyst?
Jennifer Molnar the author of the chapbook Occam’s Razor, and her work has appeared in New South, Hawai’i Review, So to Speak, Best New Poets, Duende, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from George Mason University and resides in New York.