At First Sight

Once made, this solid mauve
powder would seem forever;

but people intent on repro-
duction fire up pots next door

or across the sea, and out
of the odd one crystallizes

another, the same, but for
a tell-tale (to x-rays) part

that twists a tad; in a tango
of attractions and absences

molecules nestle in a variant
pattern. Neat, but from here on

the first won’t be made; or so
it seems, the ur-makers once

patient hands grow limp-
has desire fled? In all flasks

the second precipitates. Who,
oh who, is to blame? Yes, lay it

to the other coming-as if
seed crystals flew the world.

But the first is the accident,
a small well in a chanced

landscape, a nicked knife edge
the on parcel of phase space

never to be sampled again,
the vanishing polymorph…you.

— Roald Hoffmann