UnBottled

My teenage daughter announced

Her DNA lives in a bottle

around her neck

like her own personal genie

Extracted from her cheek swab

In a high school science lab

I see with stunning clarity, a diamond

The precious invisibility of

the single base pair difference

she carries from her deceased sister

The one base pair that keeps her alive

Three wishes I make—

That she know the miracle of her birth

That she feel her own strength

That she sense the collective

power of her female ancestors;

in their fierce & fragile fullness

Her DNA lives in a bottle

around her neck

May she always see her Life

as her own to set free

Blessed be.