biology
Bio
Mostly it’s easy, the days I mean
text book teaching senior biology
free periods in the staffroom. It’s a good life
I state as fact, not like saying, ‘she’s lovely…’
an epigraph to the gossip I write.
Suspicious of superlatives, endlessly
but hard-wired for romance
tell me I’m capable, resourceful, reliable
adore the way I follow through with things I say I’ll do
let my eyes be an after-thought.
And I’m probably on the brink again
because what else is there to do with this
flesh-covered universe we call body?
System of lungs and blood and gravity
tugging at us to love.
Anyway, turn to p80 that picture of the genome
looking to you like Dante’s hell
long-limbed chromosomes
tumbling headless towards a fiery cell
because you’re still sixteen
and haven’t understood any of this.