Infections Evolving with Time
“Do they have memories? Just shadows in the mind like a hand passing between a candle and a wall.” - Stephen Dobyns
Julienne Maui Castelo Mangawang
In suffering, I learned humans were infections evolving with time. I left people my bloodline chained me to, wishing for my former body indulged by carrion beetles and ants breaking flesh into earth. I rested beneath a house nurturing generations of humans carrying diseases and grudges into rooms and onto plates. They passed on the vestiges of death to their own kind. I listened to the rambling of a woman who thought her child for a punching bag. Weeping ricocheted from walls and broke through the floor. A flood of beer came from beyond and I recalled 24
