by Dan Campion

“Lab-grown brain cells play video game Pong”
—BBC News

A dish of brain cells playing Pong?
I can’t help thinking something’s wrong.
I’d let those neurons thrill to Bach,
Or Jake and Elwood’s “Jailhouse Rock.”
Who’d you respond to, bathed in broth,
Virginia Woolf, or Philip Roth?
There’s no disputing taste, I guess—
But still, why not a game of chess?