She mentioned to a colleague thatThe toes and fingers were identifiableAnd that bile was being produced along with urineShe beamed at the mere thought of another beingSo closely resembling herAnd rather unconvincingly, I smiledAnd poured from the room with mock austerityThe trembling of my left hand firmlyBetraying the distance I felt from humanityThe distance I felt from my own

And, with proper posture, listening to Glen Gould

Audibly imagine the fear of incendiary bombing during a siege of an airborne zealot

My thoughts fell over the blackened hair of the people due to fly across the Pacific with me, over the Bering Strait, through Vladivostok and Japan

And the children in this particular crowd that might never be mine

A nameless sea of splitting organisms, halving themselves for the sake

Of security, lineage, love. Nameless by design, a penitence that springs

Deeper than multi syllabic monikers, they are reminders of an exile

I levied against my own being, ten years ago to the day

In a fit of progressive bewilderment,

As I responded, in haste, to the madness I saw in the statement

“She is producing bile…and urine”

or

“I know you waited for so long but…”