The Small Cell


















His silver and gold are corroded.
His lungs beget a fungus .

I was a neglected sperm; this Small Cell, already a cell
which makes his alveoli become the galls in a dried leaf,
bronchus  knotted like Medusa’s  dreadlocks.
Unlike creating me, he has created an evil.
His blood carries it till the dead end,
like a  father carries his child,
like life carries death.

His breath, as sweet  as any father’s
to his daughter , now melts my face.
I breathe behalf of him – my nostrils are his.
I want to be his exhaled air and push this cell out
before it divides ceaselessly.  Does it recognize
my early  form  hidden in every one of his cell?
It is neither my twin nor my sibling.
We are not even.

He detached me from his flesh, even from the beginning,
as if he never wanted me, as if I weren’t  placid
enough to remain in his body.
Now that the creator
and the destroyer  exist as  one,
his creation won’t be the same,
and none will survive.

Like the metal is eaten by its own rust.
Like burls made out of  very bark.


2015 

© Subhadra Jayasundara