The geneticist's breath carried Influenza A, roasted garlic pesto, and Chimera. My mother absorbed only the third, horrifying in silence. I folded and kissed her, twice borne of her womb, reincarnated in chorus within the whorls of my fingertips. I love her doubly now, and she should respond in kind. She does not. She frightens easily and fears she is at fault. She is.
Go to sleep go to sleep. My halves are disquieted. Maybe they are in a fight. Tomorrow morning I will ask for cocoa, strawberries, pigtails, and lip gloss, then despite my plaintiff requests I will trundle to kindergarten as a boy with a boy's name and haircut, my genitals India and Pakistan, content for now to be suspicious neighbors.
My lunchbox contains three cold pancakes and a ziplock baggie with leftover strawberries, together with a mated pair of non-identical lengths of DNA - Do Not Ask. I will giggle and cherish each morsel. Others have peanut butter. I am a marmoset with one blue eye and one brown.
Ava Joe is the Queen of Hearts.
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