GMOs

There’s a way to insert DNA into the

heart of a cell (yes it has a heart, a way

of breathing into the blood), to eliminate

particle gum, ringspot virus, or late blight.

The undesirable. The tiny things that Van

Leeuwenhoek was the first to describe.

They all have a right to shrivel crops.

Turn earth to swirling dust. Choke the

hummingbird. Attract the worst kind of

wiry mandibles. The world has its chewy

sounds we were born to hear. What good

is the unknown? Let’s say we insert a new

gene, coyly penetrate a cell membrane,

find just the right spot on a helix, and do

a switch. There’ll be happier chickens, less

hairy pigs, taller corn, a wheat that plinks

like a harp in wind, the bread it makes filled

with song. But how do we change each other?

Where we touched that first time still glows

like something in a centrifuge, still finds its way

into marrow and nerve, rewinding helix after

helix. Because that’s what it means to keep

adding the new. Again and again. Without harm.

Shyness in sun. Or unexplained meanness.