Mapping the Genome
Geneticist as driver, down the gene
codes in, let's say, a topless coupe
and you keep expecting bends,
real tyre-testers on tight
mountain passes, but instead it's dead
straight, highway as runway,
helix unravelled as vista,
as vanishing point. Keep your foot
down. This is a finite desert.
You move too fast to read it,
the order of the rocks, the cacti,
roadside weeds, a blur to you.
Every hour or so, you pass a shack
which passes for a motel here:
tidy faded rooms with TVs on