Division (2)

This is the second part to the poem I posted at the end of March. It didn't take five months to write, I just left a draft stagnating for a while and have only recently thought to actually finish it.

Division (2)

Look through the lens of a compound microscope

and see the fabric of all living things.

With dish set down

and lamp clicked on

it is visible:

a parent cell,

magnified 100 times,

with a cellophane cytoplasm

and a nucleus; a womb that nurtures

the chaos of chromatin.

From this inert interphase to prophase:

The paired centrosomes part,

linked by microtubule arms

that stretch across the cytoplasm,

clasping hands tightly, making an arch for dancers.

The chromatin then coils into chromosomes,

condensing scribbles into four stringed worms.

In prometaphase the nucleus splinters

like a broken glass bubble,

and the strings morph into

butterflies with DNA wings;

they fly out and

stick to the spindle flowers.

Metaphase is simple:

the butterfly chromosomes are

pushed in line,

and in anaphase they are

ripped in half, the spindles

snapping them back like bungee cords.

In telephase the cell divides,

reaching the final stage of this

split story: cytokinesis.

The two daughters drift apart and

piece themselves together;

the chromosomes wrestle

until they entangle,

and an envelope

curls around them like a shell:

one nucleus, one heart,

and two living cells.