Unraveled - Benjamin Dodds

Unraveled

Never referred to explicitly

they feature alongside

anonymous lab technicians

safety-goggled henchmen

wielding delicate glass pipettes

and endless arrays of plastic phials

in footage furnishing 30-second

news pieces about genetics

and ‘ethically-troubling’ breakthroughs.

Throw in the phrase playing God

and you’re there.

Electrophoresis gels lay out

ladders of striated DNA

that fade into chemical whispers

running down the page.

To unfurl the coils

you’ll need a solution of Acrylamide

our dreaded antagonist

and known neurotoxin.

Acrylamide even looks dangerous

with its cross-braced capital A

dangerous enough to knock me

off my feet after a long and hot bath

on a departmental flex day

to find myself naked and dry

on the bedroom floor

involuntarily trawling

the bridge of my nose

up and down beige carpet

in a wide red arc.

I’ve since read

that Acrylamide accrues

in the system.

That ground-in stain

with its rusting brightness

smiles up at me still.

Benjamin Dodds
http://benjamindodds.blogspot.com/

Sorting - Benjamin Dodds

Sorting

Stainless-steel pincers prick and tear
at a spread of gelatinous film
as I tack across the magnified world
of circular Pyrex dish.
Resting my eyes back in 1:1 scale,
I find that this membrane
is the anaemic skin
of a tiny speckled frog
made transparent
through weeks
of refrigerated storage
in hermetic cube-stacked jars,
its silken bounds
the only thing
that kept free-floating workings in.
Previously anchored to their task,
strange forms now range adrift
in the sterile expanse of ethyl alcohol,
a wash of organelles
breathed out by the slackening shape.

Benjamin Dodds
http://benjamindodds.blogspot.com/