Interphase Poems | Examples

Letter from Tahira to dad in jail

left little room 
for ambiguity

There are wrinkles
in the core
Here

and cardinals
sing along with white-
throated sparrows
in various cadences
above my head

while I write lesson plans
on a glass table 
about meiosis 
for tomorrow

(bad jokes
included)

“Mom says 
I can’t do 
meiosis
until I finish
my interphase”

She was younger 
than me and brimming 
with possibility 

a decent job
friends to meet, 
appointments, 
and azaleas turning scarlet 

I try to live a life 
of clean example 

Somehow I ended up 
with the remnants
of mistakes 
and forgotten dreams


Maybe I will meet 
Picasso in the next heaven 
where I am a cube
of his former love-life, 
strumming a guitar 
in cubism 

compare 
painted brushes 
and humbler 
fantasies

and possibly 
create a new 
genre