Metastatic

Poem (A Cento)

Metastatic ~ A Cento


I watch for some sign
it has gone beyond itself:

coiled,
untouchable,

inside your rib cage.


The selfish gene that wants to live forever
is afterimage.


What awaits

— a milky web,
a vast lace of calligraphy —

the knife cannot cut.


In the unknown world,
bodily truths

learn to live together,
redefine normal.


Marks I can't wash off
— like blood —

circle us

frame by frame.

Notes

The word cento derives from the Latin word for patchwork or pastiche. It is the name given to a poem comprising words or whole lines or passages from others poets’ poems. Edward Hirsch, in A Poet’s Glossary (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, p. 98), points out that centos have been in existence since at least the 1st Century and have served a number of different purposes: as school exercises, as occasional pieces, as Christian narratives composed from pagan texts.

Below is the list of poets whose lines, words, or phrases appear in my poem, in order of appearance:

Donald Justice, "Poem for a Survivor" in Collected Poems
Donald Justice, "At the Young Composers' Concert" in Collected Poems
Mary Oliver, "Carrying the Snake to the Garden" in Long Life
Jane Hirshfield, "Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant" in After
Dave Malone, "Copper Sky, Red Suns" in View from the North Ten
Mark Jarman, Unholy Sonnets
Patty Paine, "Summary of the Night You Left" in Feral
Gustavo Perez Firmat, "Post-Op" in Scar Tissue
Mark Jarman, "On Learning of a Child's Memory" in To the Green Man
Craig Arnold, "Mistral" (Excerpt in Love, An Index by Rebecca Lindenberg)
Jane Hirshfield, Instant Glimpsable Only for an Instant" in After
Lucille Clifton, "quilting" in The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton
Karen Kovacik, "A Closed Concert" in Metropolis Burning
Lucille Clifton, "scar" in The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton
Mark Nepo, "Thoracic Surgery" in Surviving Has Made Me Crazy
Adrianne Kalfopoulou, "Stassi Ecclesia" in Passion Maps
Debra Cash, "Pour Out Your Anger in Who Knows One
Mark Nepo, "Ladders to Nowhere" in Surviving Has Made Me Crazy
Pat Borthwick, "Scan" in The Poetry Cure (Bloodaxe)
Kelly Cherry, "Wintering" in The Life and Death of Poetry

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