Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt is: Write a poem that joyfully states that “Everything is Going to Be Amazing.”
As a young child,
I watched my mom lose parts of her brain,
to a virus that ran wild,
nothing remained the same.
And yet, with time, her mind, found new ways of being,
reconnecting, circumventing, complementing,
the missing and damaged parts,
to restart.
I write this to say:
Our bodies fight,
We are built to survive,
and find ways to be alright.
Today’s National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) prompt is: Write a poem that engages with a strange and fascinating fact.
I’m in denial that today is the last day of the NaPoWriMo challenge, so maybe tomorrow I will acknowledge that fact. For now, below is my poem about viruses. It draws from the fact that “eight percent of the human genome consists of viruses.” It’s also influenced by Gerald Callahan’s essay, Chimera.
Some of our DNA
are relics of viruses
from past infections
so scientists say.
Envelope viruses like the flu,
carry lipids, protein,
and the stuff of genes,
from the hosts they travel through.
I like to think,
this means:
After years of sharing a home,
and conceivably the flu,
I’ve collected pieces of you,
stored in my chromosomes and genome.
You are not lost, you see,
You make up parts of me, literally,
saved in my “immunological memory.”
unwrithings 