Double Helix

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