Jean Biegun

My scientific son says we’re all bags of chemicals.
He could be right.
I know I leak happy serotonin from my armpits
when he sends the rare e-mail.

I feel warm dopamine vibes
when I look in the mirror at my graying hair
and like what I see
despite the loss of sexy estrogen.

My husband made that new dish I suggested for dinner,
and we both agree never to add habanero sauce
and adobo to anything ever again.
The G-I doc was right when he said the gut and brain
carry on constant conversations.
Our stomachs are screaming at our heads right now.

Some prescription disliked my head last week,
but I sucked in the side-effect rage and did not choke
the innocent bystander spouse.
The day I rejected that last pill in the bottle,
we felt glad we still have our mutual life.

Driving by the lake regularly
makes me feel good.
I count on its chemical beauty
for every prescribed transcendent mood.
Good ole H2O.

It always comes down to the liquids around,
about, and inside us:
their balance, their charge, their corpuscular weight.
Maybe crying isn’t so bad nor sweating
or vomiting after a bad fight or scare.
Bags of chemicals on a watery orb,
a blob in vacuous space — makes you wonder, that’s all.

I astonish myself—
my socks match

I have the concept socks must match
and also I drive a car

Someone thought the thought we should
bustle about in cars

Thus I make my daily runs
in a practical hatchback with low mileage

So many ideas speeding around the planet—
somebody grabs one from a hurricane

and smooths it out
while two others get their hands caught

in a jar of extra-sweet better-mousetrap
that spills over five continents

and here we are souped-up nations
all in matching socks

and sporty sedans
complete with shiny rims on our wheels

I try to remember why
I must not eat the warm muffin
in front of me (the preacher-
doctor’s rules, the wellness
articles saved), try to decode
its suspicious calorie count,
the sugar hit. I interrogate the coy
barista, Is the flour processed or
unrefined?

The sweet mound lures me with its
apple caramel perfume, its moist
glow. My stomach growls and sneers
at such puritan sublimation, this
pinched self-love unwilling
to forgive a timid nibble.

Before I plunge like a falling junkie
and take the fatal first bite,
I righteously remind myself
of the bad aftertaste from past
chunky muffins and their ilk.

And so I order a smug plain decaf
in a pristine paper cup to-go
and proudly stride ten brisk blocks home.