know: when a cell divides,
in what sense
can it be said
to "survive?"
Can one realistically
turn into two
without the former dying
and both of the latter
being wholly new?
And even if they were
to recall
the formerly recondite
parent at all,
what good would that do
to the soul of the old
mother protoplast
whose now writhing
and flailing her
flagella in hell?
Who among us would choose
at will to reproduce
when to regenerate
is to violently
bifurcate identity—
to puncture a hole
in the wall
in the lung
of what was—to suffocate
self, and to die?
