subtext

• •

Genetic Material

At which closed door

does it no longer matter

if it remains a closed door?

Does a story I’ve never heard,

because never told, become

more than my own

through implied genetic hints

and stale romantic longings?

Hundreds, perhaps thousands,

of years, and miles of oceans between

allow one to co-opt, create, and project

a nameless European hero (with a face like mine?)

to pillage and fuck their way into a future

through the tangled heath and ruins of time.

(April 3, 2025)