imagine you pour a stream of

sugar solution into a beaker

of water, or pee into a bathtub

you see the twining translucent trails

as each solution curls around the

other, prior to their coalescence?
these are schlieren lines

my biochem hons supervisor,

the one who gave me to work with

radioactive compounds so old

they had no hope of giving me

cancer, let alone decent results,
taught me this much. I don’t quite

forgive him the dodgy materials

or for telling me in detail of his wife’s

travails with cystitis, over a cup of tea

and a plain biscuit at 11, the old

laboratory ritual, with the autoclave
busily hissing steam and the smell

of dilute ethanol drifting from ranked test

tubes in gradated hues of pink but I grant

that he gave me that unique pleasure

of having at last a word for

the thing I could never name