Vertical Transmission

 
Meaning through your mother's  
        bloodstream 
       
                    at birth
                              Or through lactation

Mouth closed around a notch
        a node 
               
               to catch warm
      
                       milky spurt 

But now you are of 
               an age 
                        with scant 

                   or nonexistent childhood
records 

        When did your skin stipple
           with so much burn and loneliness
              

How many years
        
               did you see that double-stranded

shadow 
       helix behind closed lids

This condition 
                supposed to be endemic

in your part of the world
 
                           Spherical and enveloped
             Cells flood the brick-colored organ  

          Your hands helpless against the  
      flutter  
 
              as if some otherworldly 
force came nightly to feast

                            Then in the morning 
           the thing grown back

And you
        bound to the rock 

                           Your own eternal
                     observer