BENEDICTION OF THE (UN)BLESSED CHILDREN

(for jd)

We were split knuckles and obvious bones we were
mill children military children militant unwanted
children one too many               mouths
to feed children we were why can't you be more like

pigtails and skiprope, ribbon and clean nails we were
perspiration plastered and muddy teeth
we were girls that wouldn't be
girls                    who wouldn't                     Even

our prized Polish poet wrote of boys and girls posed
    naked before the looking glass                         we made
each other into mirrors              breasts not
too small or too large but too                                present

we were reflections of girl/not-girl boy/not-boy we were
enticing wiles                    the houses we inhabited
we were soggied wafers, vinegared wine, spoiled
sacrament, serpentine sneak                                we were

want of spring thaw in the roaddrift of blackened
snow miraged bodies of crows heaped beneath
power lines zapping and crackling in the gloaming
we knew dying                  was enough                         we whispered

no prayers

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IMAGO

Imagine being born into a blueprint
determinant architecture, cellular schema

from birth, the caterpillar carries disc cells that will
give it flight, shapes of wings already dreamed of

The antenna imagines itself as nothing other than
an antenna, simple cell fate determination

A scientist splices leg maps into larval cells, pupation
molds a head sprouting forest of limbs, chimera: imaginal monster

Everything always on cue: the sugar maple and sweetgum the honey
locust and black walnut dress and undress, a redress

Honeybees flirt with goldenrod, aster, coneflower, milkweed
blossoms tickle scopae and nourish chrysalides

The river's icy hibernation yawns a pulsing aurora of sunfish
alight, springing spawn of walleye, lakemelt of bass

Each in turn what they always were
meant to become

Weekly a syringe full silver sliver slices into my thigh, each morning
saplings across the plateau of my chin, vibrissae tickling the canyon of my mouth

glochids spring from the barrels of my cheeks, a barbed topiary
tectonic shifts tautening the timber truss of my jawline

eskers curl my chest like two burrowed caterpillars nibbling my sternum
metamorphic hemocyte hormone splice—on cue/re-cue: determination, fate/not-fate

Imagine being born into a possibility, a blueprint
departure, pining architecture, shapeshifter: imaginal wonder

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"Benediction of the (Un)Blessed Children": For one point of reference, I offer Czesław Miłosz's poem "Normalization." [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/42270/normalization]

"Imago": A dear friend and I were talking about gender transition and testosterone and the metaphor of metamorphosis. He taught me about imaginal discs, so I nerded out on scientific research about "cell fate determination" and "transdetermination." With this poem, I wanted to rework an old trope to think differently about the borders between nature and invention, fate and manipulation, monstrosity and beauty. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5023726/]