The Magnificent Blueprint Poem by Wanda Swim Strunk

I breathe air comprised of dead people’s breaths

Used before me by those who came before me

I wear a quilt of cellular makeup of inherited DNA

I see through borrowed eyes

That over time have become more accurate but less acute

I was born of chance by two but designed by hundreds

Forced into this rented map of history encapsulated in a body

Childless, I do not get to see what piece of me they would get

Like my niece and I who got my mother’s mother’s hands

I will die with resignation that I, me, myself will just be dust

In a round about way I will live on

Through great nephews and nieces

Who will breathe in my used air

On gloomy days wondering where it all began

Writing poems with pens held in loaned hands