Ode to His Bastards: The Accomplice Falls in Love

Part 2 of "Bastards: The Terror Science Creates" (click here to view part 1, "What Worlds We Create").

But first, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (to set the mood):

"For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. i had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

Ode to His Bastards

I wait for you to hatch

to crawl out from ground,

sprouting, unfurling,

a city populated by umbrellas.

I wait for you and pray:

grow, darlings

you are mother father

brother sister

both one and many,

divide and multiply.

You are no flower patch

no garden herb, but still

so tender, so easily bruised.

I worry about you

your soft purple blood

what may happen in the moments

you must spend alone.

Your Doctor,

so mad for pleasure,

will sow and sell your parts

pluck

clean and dry

body to cap.

You will be eaten

and shake the trees,

put breath into walls.

You will be eaten

and like a tapeworm

grow fast and greedy.

It is only after being consumed

that you bare your teeth.