Double Helix

written by: Ricky Hawthorne

@searsjames

They chased him out of the long grass
Beating him with sticks
Blood running obediently
Along the grain, mingled with
The sting of angry rain teeming from
Stilted chiaroscuro clouds
Sagging like dirty laundry
Against a glaucous tablecloth sky

In the open, they used sharper tools
Slicing carelessly at precious skin like
A Victorian doctor in a field hospital
Disposing of unserviceable limbs
Matter that didn’t matter anymore

If his polynucleotide strands were different
Perhaps he could have out-sprinted them
But he was slow and shock is a merciless servant
To every double helix

In another life, in another cell,
In another atom – a tiny shift
And perhaps the knife would have been his
Perhaps the choice too