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Charmed Helix
by Burgess Needle
Bamboo pole on shoulder my brother
headed out local kids gawked
danced from driveways behind
this sorcerer to the Charles where he knew
How to hurl a line
graceful arc to shimmering
sunfish skins matching
mica-flaked bottom
He spotted the monarch's chrysalis
grasped how a milkweed diet
kept predators away
What did anyone then know of DNA pieces
held by phosphate links
Crick had not yet seen
coiled snakes in a dream
conceive the charmed helix
My brother learned
dragonflies were different from damsels
how they both fanned summer
air their orbits physics defying
His vestigial-winged fruit flies swept
honors at science fairs
Everything in the natural world
pinned labeled filed
By the slick banks of the mottled water
we bloodied our hands
tore hooks free
Piercing the clouds to Omega blue
two hawks spiraled
Sun bleached our hair platinum
wild curls silken halos forced
us to tactical retreats of shade
We clutched jam sandwiches with
worm-stained fingers
afternoons sectioned and graphed
by thrown lines littered dead pike
water soaked soles
Randomly assembled genes brothers
aged and moved apart
continents shifted plates
One dried out in a Sonoran desert
walked along dry river beds trailed
by caws of hungry ravens
Another remained in place
woodpecker's staccato rhythm
whirring wings defying gravity
his heart raced
Everything discarded
except bird songs
Stopped eating meat
Enveloped himself in Mozart
on the third floor home facing
the Atlantic walked over
riparian lands seeking
another link to his charmed helix life
In his wife’s embrace the other one dreams
Time is palpable in a cave
He sees his brother on the wall
Their hand prints glow by a torch
His left the other’s right
Thumbs touching finally
The mouth of the cave opens to a river
Standing under a brilliant sun they know
Their past present and future
Children emerge from the shadows
Now following both to the water
Where the fish still shimmer
Dragonflies kiss them each
Over and over and over…
Originally appeared in Red Fez. Now a part of the Every Crow in the Blue Sky collection
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