Impressions of an Engineering Student
by Lynda Williams

Striding the hallowed halls, I half expect
modern six-guns to flash into hands,
-- fastest fingers in the West --
victory falling to the mightiest mini
handful of buttons.

Standing triumphant, you would tap
red digits out of the black eye
of a Texas Instrument
-- a click of electronic gunsmoke --
sheath your weapon and collect
congratulations tumbling out of mouths
in letters and percentages

Maybe it is the inevitable termination
of off-white cotton at a thin brown belt
which gave me the impression
that a stallion of steel should await you
as you leap from the fourth floor window
-- testing the validity of g --

and free radical reactions
banging balloons of hydrocarbons
into ragged red pieces
you would gallop off into the wilds of industry
to try your six shooter
on the remaining buffalo.