Poem of the Week

Strontium to Mendeleyev
Peter Porter

What joy to meet you, Dmitri Ivanovich,
In this your Periodic Chancellery.
My more than seven times seventy years' itch
Is a consummation devoutly to be wished:
I sit at the table you have laid for me.

Number and Rank! Mass 87 plus,
Thirty-eighth from Father Hydrogen,
And yet I turn your children's milk to pus.
They call it valency when we discuss
How murderous this numbered regimen.

O Governor from God, Profound Encoder,
Whose agents are the elements of earth,
Instinct us well, Harmonious Downloader,
Entrope our restlessness, as hairy Yoda
Disciplined that boy of astral birth.