‘The difficulty, then, is how far we are ourselves

the objects of our senses.’

David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

 

Like a flimsy thread my vanity

clings to, it seems that as far

as logic’s concerned what I call

my self’s a phantom and no more

a part of me than skin, hair

or toenails are, shed by the strangers

they started out with.

 

So where is the screen memory

flares on and who’s the kid

sitting there, spellbound,

as JB in his goggles ignites

the bright metallic strip

he holds in tongs then dips

into the flickering Bunsen?

 

Of all those hours spent

behind stained benches

what else remains but a few facts

or party tricks, consigned

to the dark for years

until that moment sparks?

– lighting up once more

 

what I learned but never used

about the alkaline earths

or hyperactive alkali metals:

their symbols, numbers, properties,

and what it is they’re good for,

reacting flamboyantly

when exposed to water.

 

And then there’s music shared

with friends I’ll never meet again

that takes me back to school

as now, unaccountably, a teacher does

who prepped his board in break

and signed it: Do not efface! JB –

his aim with the chalk deadly.