I, Atomic Chef

7:00AM

The chef’s cutting board,

or is it the mortician’s table?

I, atomic chef, place a single atom of calcium

on my cutting board.

It glows an otherworldly sparkling yellow,

shot with all hues of red,

each one a new artery that feeds

the growing golden threads

that make the world’s electricity,

cause dictators and martinets to smile,

and induce happiness in newborn noonday demons.

7:01AM

The first cut must be 100% accurate,

down the centerline drawn by Zeus himself,

thus preserving a certain unwritten symmetry

that Heisenberg poeted in his first principle

that I say is bullshit ’cos you can, in fact,

stop an electron by knocking first then asking nicely,

something the good German never even considered,

’cos, well, you know how the Germans are:

shoot ’em dead first, Herr Kommissar!

then go all ACHTUNG! and ask questions;

maybe take some names later.

7:17AM

After many sweats and tears

that extinguish my box of exotic sea salts,

I determine the correct theoretical angle of cut,

and deftly toss and flip the calcium atom

for weeks and years that, it turns out, are numerically

only 16 small minutes of Swiss time,

and position Her Atomicness just so,

spread her out and pin her down at the corners

with fine insect pins, each Swedish black anodized steel,

#000, and pretty goddamn close to 0.25mm diameter,

so help me god (jesus fucking christ, child, any god will do).

6:45AM, The Next Day

Zeus warned me I have only one stroke,

so please don’t fuck it up;

yes, Zeus really said fuck,

and that the term has been around

since before Uranus slipped from Gaia’s womb,

or so legend has it,

but methinks he was actually born parthenogenically,

’cos the gods were like that: all asexual and shit.

P.S. When Zeus said fuck,

it was delivered across the western Pacific sky,

from Santa Barbara to downtown Tokyo,

in a series of blue-purple lightning arrows

and great cracks of thunder that rocked

the moon out of its dull orbit

and sent it on an urgent errand

to escort Halley’s you-know-what

on its screaming elliptical.

9:36PM, The Following Year

After careful consideration and much consternation,

which are probably the same thing ’cos they both

have 13 letters,

I, the atomic chef,

have decided not to split the calcium atom,

’cos it would doubtless splinter my fingers

and irradiate my privates

in the process,

common side-effects I wish to avoid

in case I need them for masturbation

or maybe invagination in one form or another,

which are mos def the same thing,

’cos both have 12 letters

and end in ation.

9:37PM

Please stand by for a formal press release,

which will announce that I am actually

a cowardly mortician

and not really I, atomic chef.