Previously overlooked connections
in the hermaphrodite worm
The future
full of rats
big as elephants
big as dogs and cats
We’ll’ve nourished the ground
Fertilizer bods
And no one’ll be able
to revive the brains of us
All’s left’s the connectome
of C. elegans a free-living
transparent nematode
and its easily cataloged
302 neurons
which contrary to ours
flow throughout its entire
wispy wavy form
For now every night
my synapses
are mollified, I perform
the initiation and termination
of action, I suck on a stick
full of strawberry
flavored oil and make believe
I’m a brain suspended
in goo or a worm
birthed upon a petri
of bacteria-laden agar!
Indeed there will be time
to purposely erase
100 faces, disrupt
sequences, forget breath,
no heartbeat, become
the model organism
show you my lumen
(
the opening
inside my bowels
which consequently
both C. elegans and I
have along with vulvas,
uteruses, anuses
)
we’re essentially
the same but I fail
to move sinusoidally
fail to live and die alone
fail not to envy
the worm’s neurons
which fail to recognize
failure or more likely
in the first place
wouldn’t’ve even tried
And would I bisect me
to understand
what this means
And would I have
my dense core vesicle
dyed cobalt blue
See my multicolored
memories splotch
the screen like algae
on the surface of a pond?
