Primal Testament

Original Text

Ian Lancashire, <i>Primal Testament</i> (Niagara Falls: Seraphim Editions, 2016): 104-06.

1Perfected predator, ranging under

2sediment stagnating in a roadside

3drainage ditch or rooting in the mire

4of embedded shingles of a river

5that idles downwards to a redding tide,

6breathes oxygen exhaled by algal blooms

7during photosynthesis as they bask

8in nitrogen and phosphorus sewage

9that flows, unstaunched, into neritic-zone

10life-teeming estuarine turbulence

11along the Susquehanna bed, collapsed

12when a cataract of northern waters

13broke through the glaciers and made the bay

14of Chesapeake, whose inland shallows rest

15atop the continental shelf, sea-gate

16to the black and alien abyssal plain.

17I'm dugesia tigrina,

18mottled triclad, slippery fellow,

19shaking my tri-angled head's two

20pointy auricles side to side,

21for sensing where is what to eat,

22training twin ocelli above

23to shun the light for safety's sake,

24unblinking sensors (fixed on you)

25of a miniscule cross-eyed schmoo

26invertebrate that domiciles

27the sterile petri dish filled with

28a pure spring-water medium --

29take care of your planaria --

30tap water doesn't suit our taste,

31its chlorine suffocates and kills --

32and flatworms are adorable

33additions to the household gods

34once your class has quite done with us.

35Its ciliated epithelia,

36seeping mucus to lubricate its glide,

37catch prey as sticky-tape does tired flies

38until a tubal throat from under-mouth

39pokes out to suck on little vertebrates,

40mosquito larvae, and baby flatworms,

41undigested debris of which vacate

42the handy selfsame hole as excrement.

43I never have to die of age,

44tissue loss, or organ failure,

45as an experiment will show:

46slip me onto a dish of ice

47and once I'm lethargic and numbed,

48slice me two times with a scalpel,

49lengthwise first, from head to tailpiece,

50and next across the ocelli,

51and pour the quarter mini-me’s

52back in the petri dish before

53we freeze, recording how we squirm

54and stretch – two weeks at most should do –

55until we clone the one we were

56four times, eight auricles and eyes,

57four heads and nether openings

58to eat-excrete, and gonopores

59to traffic eggs and semen with.

60But the scissored worm lies foundering, nerves

61afire, prone in a dish for appetites

62of an envious intelligencer

63mortified by unfitness to outlast

64a life that couldn't even fossilize

65yet claims a phylum, Platyhelminthes,

66pre-Cambrian, defying necrosis

67with neoblasts so systematically

68plenipotent they grow whatever cells

69the fissionable worm and its sickled

70brood might need, and in the sequence governed

71by its embryogenetic flowchart:

72they're beneath-the-killer's-knife immortal.

Publication Start Year

2016

RPO Edition

2016

Form

syllabic verse

Special Copyright

"Planarian" (c) Ian Lancashire. Printed gratis, and specifically for Representative Poetry Online, with permission of the author. As published in Primal Testament (Niagara Falls: Seraphim Editions, 2016). Any other use, including reproduction for any purposes, educational or otherwise, will require explicit written permission from Ian Lancashire.