Hello, hello, this is your Telomeres

Poetry by Claire Kruesel

Poem 3 of 3

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Claire Kruesel grew up just outside Rochester, Minnesota, then migrated to Iowa State to study Biochemistry and Genetics. A first-year in the Creative Writing and Environment MFA program, her vision is to merge poetry with science to translate the awe she feels for the natural world in an unexpected way. Her interests include antiques, evolutionary psychology, epigenetics, and viewing the world through shifting perspectives of scale. She is also a yoga teacher and member of the ISU women's ensemble Cantamus.

As Martone noted, these poems are a bit jumbled up - this reflects both the way they originated (one image or moment, perhaps, multiplying itself in my brain like a desired virus until it’s a house of variations-on-the-original-mirror), and the way we evolved, which is one of my main sources of inspiration: the amazing, unlikely, haphazardly juxtaposed way that genetic mistakes do-si-do'ed with themselves to ever-so-slowly and un-self-awarely create something delightfully unexpected. (To even begin to explore the evolution of the eyeball-machine that's allowing you to read this would require volumes!) As an undergrad, in the lab, I was always focusing on the "wrong" things - the lovely spectrum of assays' blue hues as they developed, for example, not the molecular concentrations behind them - so to me, the intersection of science and emotion feels like home. (The tug-of-war at that address - between our genes and our egos - is something I explore in this set of poems, particularly with Hello, Hello, this is your Telomeres; in Definitions, we are the gene, wandering in the body of the world). I aspire to use my background in Biochemistry and Genetics to ground my joy at being part of this grand experiment, and to show the reader that you need not have on lab gloves to appreciate the invisible or overlooked scientific delicacies all around us.

TTAGGGTTAGGGTTAGGG

GGGATTGGGATTGGGATT*

Hello, hello, we wish to converse

with the decision-maker in there.

This is your Telomeres speaking.

We are done repairing ourselves

without reward or recognition just so

you can run around like a spring chicken

with its head cut off. If you fail in your duty

to reproduce soon, we will all need to be

extra careful to keep your cells young

so that when you finally do come to

your evolutionary senses, the clock

still keeps time, so to speak. (You’re all

wound up tight, and you wouldn’t believe

how rusty the gears have become

down here). They say de-stressing

keeps Us long, longer; we recommend

a regimen of organic bitter greens

plus a comprehensive course in yoga.

If you know what’s good for you – ahem,

your DNA – you’ll keep Us happy.

We’re like the gas cap you can’t afford

to drive away without because we live

in a land on fire. Speaking of fire, your

atrocious diet isn’t doing Us any favors

(see: Nutrigenomics; veganism; flaxseed).

It would, of course, be easier to acquiesce

our original demands. (You exist solely

to perpetuate Us, surely you do realize).

And don’t scoff like this is an uneven ex-

change. We did give you sex, after all.

The least you could do is do it au naturel

once or twice (but please do be particular

about with whom you copy Us. You haven’t

earned us; True: but here we are. Let’s hope

for improved quality next round). End-

phatically, your concerned Telomeres.

TTAGGGTTAGGGTTAGGG

GGGATTGGGATTGGGATT

* Telomeres are structures at the end of chromosomes that buffer DNA from degradation; the sequence TTAGGG is repeated up to 2,500 times in human telomeres. Longer telomeres offer superior protection, and (since each instance of DNA replication tends to curtail length by omitting some TTAGGG’s) shorter telomeres correlate with aging.