The Twisted Ladder
By Jeremy Gadd
The oncologist said:
‘It’s a terminal disease,’
effectively informing me
my life is null and void.
And I admit I did pray as
I sat, head bowed, imagining
my DNA, composed
like the holy trinity,
of three separate but
integral parts within
double stranded helices,
passing through me;
from generations past,
via anti-parallel ladders
of twisting pairs of
molecular strands on
to my distant descendants.
‘It’s a terminal disease,’
effectively informing me
my life is null and void.
And I admit I did pray as
I sat, head bowed, imagining
my DNA, composed
like the holy trinity,
of three separate but
integral parts within
double stranded helices,
passing through me;
from generations past,
via anti-parallel ladders
of twisting pairs of
molecular strands on
to my distant descendants.
For weeks I lived with that
awful image in my mind;
the DNA helix chiral
revolving in my brain,
imparting genetic instructions
from my mutant genes
to chromosomes inherited
by my only child, grandchildren,
great grandchildren; my
lineage, ad infinitum.
And I reviled and censured
science for being able to
foretell but not prevent
the consequence of that
mutagen active within my cells.
But then came an epiphany
and I understood – the same
science that foretold my fate
might one day, long after listening
to my funeral bells, enable
my progeny to modify their cells.
Jeremy Gadd has published four volumes of poetry: Reflections While Flying on Empty (Aldrich Press, USA, 2015); Selected Poems, (Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2013); Twenty-Six Poems, (AICD Sydney, 2000); and A Tale of Tai Ringal and Other Poems, a livre d’artiste with engravings by P. John Burden, (Bournehall Press, England, 1975). The 1975 collection is now found in rare book collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Samuel Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia; and the Reid Library, University of Western Australia