(un)natural: Ideas about naturalness in public and political debates about science, technology and medicine

To be subjects somewhere

we waited in the shadow of municipal buildings

that we might learn a mania for queues

each of us with a story

and those behind glass the harshest

critics—who have forgotten what it takes

to make the worst days of your life

catchy; a tune children might sing.

To be subjects somewhere

we shortened our names

or, better still, changed them wholesale:

KiKi for Christabel, Victor for Wojtek

the histories we carried given over,

like passports of lesser standing,

until we didn’t know memory from myth

and no one lived who could say.

To be subjects somewhere

we stood, out of place, so long

we dreamed of going back

to where our names were

not some bitter herb added

to the local cuisine, to where people

did not watch us with suspicion

as if genes could hold a flag.