The Cell-Free Sensor

You stitch all the human olfactory genes

To live colonies of yeast or mammalian cells

And use them to identify odors. These cells

Are called cell-free sensors, apparently because

No human cells need be involved. The inventions

Of social species always involve outsourcing,

Unlike the inventions of the microbia,

Which always involve fortuitous ingestion.

There’s something of a competition going on.

The unholy representation of the real,

Someone calls the radiation damage to film

Of Chernobyl after the infamous meltdown.

What part of representation is unholy?

The part where the real speaks in the voice of decay,

Suffering, and death to its children, the living.

Oh, come on now, lighten up a bit. Wouldn’t it

Be a gas to have ready-to-hand little kits

Of cell-free sensors in which the yeast express genes

For identifying the rhythms of language,

Humor radiating through the air, irony

Fond of itself, poetry fond of holiness?