I am Charles Darwin. I eat owlflesh at Cambridge University.
I have discovered something, an entirely new species
with tropical fever in its reptile fingers. I am busy
with taxonomying its most peculiar and three-sided
armor, its six-toed fitness for these latitudes and its perfect
speckled eggs like forlorn lovenotes, black mammalian eyes pinpricked
with blue as if caught in headlights suddenly. I’ve isolated
a cold-weathered ancestor in its DNA. I’m going to clone
its terrible antlered children, its swarming descendants, outsource
its coiled vertebrate progenitors to secret facilities
hungry for fresh IP. I’ve obtained Steven Spielberg to direct
the lizard’s biography. I will name it after royalty. I am
deliriously pleased. I find myself full of discovery.
I am homesick, boat-sick. I am hotel-room-sick. I want to go home.
…
Meghan Kemp-Gee lives between Vancouver and Fredericton. She writes poetry, comics, and scripts of all kinds. Her debut poetry collection, The Animal in the Room, is forthcoming in spring 2023. She also co-created Contested Strip, the world’s best comic about ultimate frisbee. Find her on Twitter @MadMollGreen.
