In Yourself

I

Mitochondria: mighty conqueror, horse made of milk and egg white and the insides of gutted seashells, sword wrought in a dying star and sharpened with a thousand cutting true words creator, lips weaving spiral galaxies of what-ifs and could-bes writing memories into soil and wishes into trees

II

Cancer: cursed, like a rotten swear word besmirching naivety lines of intricate programmed numbers surrendering to a row of useless zeroes scored in worthlessness accident, the lid of Pandora’s box left open upon the dresser while the demons and the furies and the sorrows trampled their way over hope to freedom

III

DNA: ladder, climbing your way through a dreamer’s mind with angels leaning on your rails as they escape into higher places where nothing is blood-drenched and ugly braided

weaving your way through a ring of thorns back down from heaven to the scarred spine of the earth offering up the last great hero to the greedy mouth of the wicked man’s altar

IV

Reticulum: ridicule, so-called hypocrisy set to rock the foundations of this temple of two-faced leaders shepherding their herd of lemmings closer to the cliff and whistling while they work meticulous every aspect of the words that he teaches, that remember their glory days cleaving the universe into breath and remain honed, scalpels now for the surgeon who visits the suffering sick

V

Cilia: silver, I’ll sell you for it if they name the right price see how much they pay me for lies and slander for a hanging tree and a potter’s field and a traitor’s name dragged through the dirt where it belongs plaited like an iron barbed whip and an execution and a bloodied back that’s what they’ll pay you for my crime when they scourge your own flawless name in the dirt and label it with crucifixion

VI

Golgi Bodies: golgotha they named this place for a skull’s empty sockets in a heartless head, for iron spikes and foul things that shouldn’t prowl the earth, shouldn’t cheer now from the darkness as the wrathful night oppresses this mound God have You forsaken this place and the man who must die here, can You feel the bite of those nails and that blood and that spear? heroes aren’t supposed to die like this

VII

Genome: garden, quiet in the morning after three days’ tears and the guards are sleeping in turns with one eye open each as if waiting for a monster to break loose even as they joke that there is nothing left now but darkness and death sepulchre in its tomb, hope laments the cruelty of its siblings, dormant like a seed new-planted, knowing that daylight is coming and it’s time to grow. they thought a spear and nails would kill it but still, it breathes and g r o w s

VIII

Membrane: mapping, this is me, this is you and all of it is carving into our bones like a story that cannot be forgotten, every

new blood cell from our marrow, every organ of our body speaking of it until we cannot hear for listening hope do you hear it now? Still where it was that day in AD 33 immortal no matter how many iron nails and bullets and bayonets you put through it—can you find it in you? in your tissues and your blood and your breath please don’t forget

— Sarah-Kate Simons, Homeschooled