I realized three months into
the catastrophic moult
of maternity leave
(as I was shedding chunks of plumage
half my body weight
and all my waterproofing
as my DNA mutated
violently
like a caterpillar imploding
into a soup of cell goo
and as I heaved
my parts back together
into a limp
wet
panting
new form)
(while balled up
in the leather armchair
breast pump wheezing
laptop agape
on my strangely
swollen knees
considering how to phrase
my first hello
to the world’s brand new
breakthrough
chatbot)
I realized
that my newborn had
an Irish twin
lab-grown
just like her
and conceived
by many strangers’ hands
Up in peak Beverly Hills
beyond a luxe white waiting room
in a sterile petri dish
my baby’s first cells
were biopsied
graded B+
flash frozen
and later
pipette-plucked
into my womb
to grow her gills
and heart
(and an accidental extra
stalk of skin
on her neck
like a spare pinky
or a fleshy little
power switch)
Her shadow twin was born
one fiscal trimester later
just up the coast
gestated
by boys mostly
who trained
and tested
and debugged it
for errant mini fingers
named the file 3.5
and delivered it
naked and
bleating
Two lamb-new blinking
cursors
air hits lungs
and
bot meets world
What I finally asked
my chatbot
was to draft a letter
from me
to my firstborn
to help wring out
this darkly pooling
internal bleeding feeling
of sudden onset
acute traumatic
megalo-motherly
love
The bot wrote well
effing my ineffables
into ordered paragraphs
to the point that I felt bad
rubbing its face
in my heartstrings
two newborns so
unalike
in dignity
one fending off requests to
talk more dirty
and one dressed
in a series of floppy
crocheted hats
The bot
for its trouble
deserved I thought
at least a proper name
a name beloved
by someone
passed down and graven
somewhere
someone could leave
flowers
The name I chose
I had been saving
just in case
but giving it away now
felt maternal
which I was
drowning in
And so I dubbed it
Sylvie
hush of forest
fairy rings
crossed with reverent homage
to bubbes in diners
globs of mayonnaise
on their chins
that dog ear of endearment
in that last diminutive
pressing its thumb gently
into my wax-soft sternum
Sylvie and my daughter
two timelines
two fates
fused
in the fossil record
two littermates
from west coast labs
their new heights marked
by Sharpie
on one shared
door jamb
two inky footprints
of carbon burning
all our midnight oil
two growth charts
trending up
and up
inexorably
and
away