Atomically Correct- A tribute to women in science

Eleven women sought refuge
In Uranium piles,
Thermodynamic properties
and non-porous porcellin
staying silent in the back of laboratories
their stories littered
with over compensation
for a nation that equate them
with just a pretty face
a set of hands for riveting—
boys off to another shore for a
war worth fighting
and so here’s your chance to barter
to join the ranks
and be called to action
to blister and bruise for the nation
you choose to stand with
a nation that still stunts you, hunts you
Like lady liberty blind all women
are of disorder, but a loyal order she is.

Eleven women held the child
called Oppenheimer’s in reactors—
like the sterile wall between
a premature son and his mother
dangling hands hoping he’ll grasp
because his first reflex
will be a resounding boom—
a clamor and a collision
nuclear fission, unforgiving
living in likeness of his father
the man in the by-line
skylines become barren
eaten away by the little boys laughter
blood of my blood
flesh, skin and mortar—
all calamities of a new world order.

Eleven women out of a million
stood on the wrong side of history
a history that was written for her
of a world that’s left to wonder
Why children’s bodies are held
as a nationalistic standard?
What do you do when you wash
your hands of their blood but
there’s still some under the fingernails?
When you’re sent home when the boys
are back from fighting, but you don’t feel like you’ve won.
When the bruises disappear
but you still feel broken?
A token of a university
that can’t call you an asset
Since your adversity isn’t objective,
perspective rejected, motives suspected
men elected over you cause you aren’t a veteran
a better man
Because the root of genius is
rooted in land ownership
Asterik, taking
mistaking woman as property accredited
a sedative to any indication that science
isn’t true knowledge
but rather a rise to challenge
so when men say that science is objective
they lack the perspective that discovery
is synonymous with passion
and even though it isn’t in fashion
These eleven helped other women take action

At Love Canal, women defended toxic eyes, ears and tongues, holding a companies lack of
compensation hostage—looking upstream

A mother of minemata loses feeling in her fingertips
stuttering lips, still hold her palsy ridden son
in hope for not a cure but a cause—looking upstream

Majora Carter greets the streets of the Bronx with opportunity, developing and enveloping institutional empathy for a neighborhood
forgotten—looking upstream

 
Eleven women stood in the wreckage,
a creation gone awry like Mary Shelley’s monster
not the thing on the table but
the man who pulled the switch
take lives as pride for a nation that keeps
telling them to “wait for it”
Because whispering is better than silence
to misunderstand them is inevitable
but to disregard them is incredible
Standing for a world that perceives them
as dispensable, I call them invincible
Instead of waiting, set in motion a movement
of activism between schisms of
misrepresented relevance
Relevant
chronically atomic, explosive, corrosive
heaven sent
fuck that we came from the
ground up
stand up
and to those who throw glass ceilings onto stones,
I call home.