Laura Manuelidis




Beyond the fence
Idomeni, Greece March 2016

The children fled as uprooted wildflowers.
They dispersed between the pale flax of morning
            bent by the north winds:
            the rhythm of time
Syncopated.

The children sped
With dried blood crusting their memories:
Flimsy colored petals.

Underneath the tent
Dampness turned into a mud basin
Deeper than the thigh of a 4-year old with arms raised
             but holding flowers
Already rotted.

Look at the beautiful faces
             of these children
Playing like lion cubs
Harmlessly kissing each other
             under blankets
Tasting the sweetness of new saliva
Imagining a flawless tomorrow.


Interrogation 5

Love the zebra:
Love the hoofbeats of a heart
Escaping its stripes.

Watch the wings of dragonflies
Cracking as glazed glass
In the choirs of an evening sky

Or rain, that lands the flanks of petted cows
Who moo for grass, now
Slippery underhoof.

Glint of snow, under sun, under moon
Changes as love must—all—
Its phases combine.

What then blinds our admission
Of these orphans in locked trucks
With their waiting, crowded eyes?



Laura Manuelidis is a physician and neuroscientist at Yale who found how repeated DNA sequences define chromosome folding and structure. She is the author of two books of poems: Out of Order (iUniverse, 2007) and One / divided by Zero: poems (CreateSpace, 2014). Her work, which appears in Oxford Poetry, The Nation, and Evergreen Review, has been nominated for Pushcart prizes. She continues to investigate infectious causes of dementia and to publish scientific articles and other essays.








                                    

 

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