I whirl giddily in your phosphorus embrace,
Awaiting erasure, coupling, and coil.
It’s so far across the cytoplasm—
I need your strong arm to steer me.
I enter the maw of your recombinase
And shut my eyes for the initiation.
You cross all cell boundaries
To effect devious rodent transformations.
But you are destined to create royal lines,
Anointed with collagen polymers.
We all bind to your dynastic ligand,
But leave handbraids scant legacy
—Might this palindrome be a dud—
To compose in its gamut a reset,
A handbreadth return.
Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) is a historically significant genetic engineering technique that vastly escalates the potential for altering human, animal, and plant life.
This poem was published in The RavensPerch on September 11, 2023.
Andy Oram
January 29, 2020