The doctor said, “Whoops, there seems to be triplets here.”

Whoops?

It's not bad enough we'd tweaked the fetus' genetic structure.

It's not bad enough we'd given it super-strength, a host of mental upgrades, camouflage-like skin pigments (swiped from chameleons by yours truly), and that we didn't know a damn thing about its social demeanor – now there were three of them.

“Aren't there supposed to be safeguards against that happening?”

“They didn't work.”

“You don't say.”

The donor female perished in the birthing. I noticed one of the infants curling a tentacle around the doctor's thumb.

“It's kinda cute, don't you think?” he said.

I winced at the scream when the thing's tentacle gave a twitch, snapping the doctor's thumb. He dropped the baby on the floor and ran from the room, followed by a string of obscenities. I glanced at the wet, fleshy lump – now colored like the brushed metal floor.

Cute.

This is a fragile thing.
This belly full of a musketballs.
Bleed your blue and grey,
     But don't forget your brother's knife
     The one your father gave him.
Snap the fragile edge
Against your throat
Mother, won't you tend this wound,
Stitch the ragged ends together
The suture is a chasm
The chasm is a scalpel cut
And I don't remember the surgeon's name.
     But I remember your brother's knife,
     I remember your brother's wife
And the child they stitched
This family with.

Here I am.
Here am I.
I hear A.M.:
The fizzle-crack
Of sunlight bursting
Seeds in the soil
Of these sleep-thick eyes.
I am here.
I am here.
Here, ami,
Tend my roots with your trowel-blade.
But nick no worms--
They are innocent.
Ah, me, here
Is the gavel-truth:
These flagstones are a penance.
The moss on my lips the bailiff.
I am here-
by sentenced, juried by worms
And judged by blossoms
Bursting from my flesh.

Turn my tongue to ash.
Stuff my mouth with garlic.
Break my fingers
Bind my hands,
Stitch my eyes
Bury me under the thousand stones
Of ruined Babel.
It makes no difference.
I am ever so far from you.

There is so much I can do.
I can speak to a windmill-maker
In Africa.
I can speak to a man
Floating between here and the moon.
I can pour torrents
Into the open ears of thousands.
But I cannot yet
Download the scent of sandalwood
I cannot yet
Kiss the windmill-maker's lips.