Amoeba

You are linear

without bulges.

You are not me –

red, unformed, gelatinous –

in hidden crannies,

and even if you were,

I know I must not see it.

Not even if I dared

to be an amoeba.

No more

than a smudge of organic paste,

no skins of memory,

no faces swirling in my cytoplasm,

a single inviolable nucleus,

unselfconscious and yet aware

of my fluctuating frontiers,

never burgeoning with too many selves,

no messy nuclear explosions,

a simple solution to every cellular crisis –

sever self from self.

But would there be just a fleeting recollection,

just that familiar twinge,

as I watched you,

self-contained and immaculate,

swim like a virgin

into your unruffled watery domain?