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Madame Curie

Erren Kelly

you spat on the russian obelisk
in warsaw
cos you wanted the tsar
to know your dreams belonged
to poland
you spelled destiny
with the periodic
table

you walked as no woman walked
in the city of lights
poised and confident
your polish-accented french
left its song along the
seine

an x-ray shows a man’s bones
another, teeth, like piano
keys
you became the radium
girl
seeing the future in a half-life
in the shadow of the eiffel
tower

you became the first woman
in paris
to earn a ph.d in
physics
you graduated first in your
class

you became a modern girl
in a modern age
never settling for half
a life

you married a man of ideas
not action

it must’ve been something:
you and pierre
coming back to
the lab ever day
watching the elements
separate
until the room glowed

that’s how radioactivity was born

you and pierre
separate a 1/10 of a gram of
radium
from 10 tons of pitchblack ore

scientists wanted pierre to
take the credit
like they wanted him
to take the nobel
prize

but he knew you were the
shadow behind
the work
and you were given your
due

the bright lights in paris
glow like radium as you
walked
brash and confident
a woman of action
walking along the
seine

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