The Closet Contains a Sump Pump

[On my father’s desk we found papers dated to 1979. He had just died of a sepsis infection. The papers from the seventies were twenty years old. I was seventeen. All my life he had taught organic chemistry at Southern Illinois University. All my life he had worked in a laboratory. All my life he had streamlined the process known as two-dimensional gas chromatography.]
*
[Sunday morning with Legos. Building robots
together, machines with absurd functions,
towering monuments to whim.
We leave our materials on the floor
among chips (sour cream
& onion), punch stains, crumbs.
There, the blocks not used
lay.]
*
[A wish, immediately granted!] [A brook full of baby crawdads, tadpoles, and minnows. A peaceful setting; a violent happening.]
*
[What’s absurd about diabetes? Having it. Is it plural or singular, that -es? This pancreas refuses to produce. {TURNS TO ADDRESS PANCREAS} Stop making a scene, you ungrateful little vestigial...what will we do with you? How do we work this out? What’s the problem, anyway? {PANCREAS DOES NOT RESPOND} I need an unresponsive organ, truly. I need a nonproductive pancreas. Now we have to import our insulin. It ships from Indianapolis and Germany. We must import it and inject it. The apparatus, a syringe, is an inefficient delivery system. Errors will be made. Too much insulin, sometimes too little. This is inefficient!]