DNA creating cells, creating tissues, creating blood in my veins
Pre-determined in embryonic eggs within the embryo of my mother before she was born
Of her mother’s embryonic eggs,
And of her mother’s mother’s embryonic eggs,
as were all the mothers and all the eggs
before me
born in Ireland,
End with me - American
In the tide that rips and ripples north to Belfast shores
Is there a drop of Eastern seaboard, New Hampshire snow melt, Connecticut grime, Atlantic Ocean in that foam that calls itself the Irish Sea?
Is there a drop of Alabama protozoa, Californian mitochondria, American nucleus in that foam spewed forth from my father?
Is there Andromeda stardust in the sand whipped from these rocky shores?
Molecular nebula in the wind that shakes the barley,
Rays and particles from long since past supernovas in the sunlight
That died with all of their pre-historic atoms
And the pre-historic atoms of all of the stars before them
The nerves that serve my sight
designed of Irish elements
The air and water, vitamins, minerals, they fed upon, American
Do my eyes’ cells recognize the seas’ cells as foreign or domestic?
Everything I know of sea
– Pacific and Atlantic
Everything I know of me
– Celtic and Romantic
Although oceans have tangible drops, though unfathomable their origins
My genesis, an intangible thought, though traceable my origin
