States of Matter
Tracy Ryan
So we make goo to prove
that some things behave
the way they shouldn’t
just like people, I guess,
but this is more intrinsic,
it’s oobleck.
Is it a solid or liquid?
Non-Newtonian fluid:
custard or toothpaste,
shampoo or blood.
Also called magic mud.
Matter is like that,
elusive, animate or
not. Like dead or living:
discuss what they mean
to a virus
that cannot reproduce
outside us, what does
that make us, a place?
A little world made
cunningly, unmade
so easily. Or sitting
between kingdoms,
that hit and miss, like
much of reality; when I
started this would-be
teaching business there
were two only, but by
the time she began high-
school there were five.
That caught me out,
and now I’m afraid to look,
truth shifts so quickly.
And what about good old
slime mould? From schooldays.
Moving, like goo, but can’t
be called animal – never
been comfortable with
a fellow life-form
whose nickname
is dog vomit,
who can be taught
new tricks, now thought
to remember, it may
even have cognition.
This oobleck, though,
has forgotten its manners
after the point is made
on states of matter, stuck
like sludge, flecked everywhere,
outstaying its welcome.
