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Sport 35: Winter 2007

a trick of the genes — for Will

page 73

a trick of the genes

for Will

You find it. You turn it in your mouth like a striped
sweet. With the authority of a small prophet
you name me. 'Dy-a', you say—the word
I first heard tested on my brother's tongue.

Is this some hand-me-down trick of the genes
to overthrow a sister freshly through the hoops of loss?

You stand there wrinkling your (quite different) nose
at time. Smiling, as though you knew
you had uncovered a lexicon; with it, a thing
as fugitive, as buried and as lost as my first self.