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The Deep End of the Gene Pool

Terrie Leigh Relf, The Boortean Ambassador
Poetry
Fantasy

It’s time to go swimming in the gene pool,
and I can’t stop thinking of Dr. Gregor Mendel,

whether he took time out from counting peas
and rice to put on his trunks (deep purple,

no doubt), dive into the deep end of the
pond—on Io, or perhaps Europa—

before the window closed. The starslip’s
crew (with their stiff-spined texts) are

sitting in the galley. It’s so quiet, so still,
that they appear to have switched on

the God-gene, are saying grace,
before splicing together a new strand. It is

this absence of sound that most moves
me. . .until Dr. Mendel takes out his

jars of shriveled peas, attempts to roll
them on the floor—but all they do is

wobblewobble even though we’re in
zero-g and far from geosynchronous orbit.



                                                             


 

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Copyright 2009, Terrie Leigh Relf, The Boortean Ambassador. All rights reserved.

Terrie Leigh Relf M.A. lives in Ocean Beach, just a few blocks away from her beloved ocean, in San Diego, CA. She is a member of the SFPA and HWA, and is also a fiction writer, editor, and writing coach.  She has been nominated for four Rhysling Awards, the James B. Baker Award, and The Preditors and Editors Award.

Relf wears a variety of editorial hats at Sam's Dot Publishing, is the poetry editor for Tales of the Moonlit Path and New Voices in Fiction. Recent releases include The Poet's Workshop and Beyond, a writing "handbook", and Blood Journey, a vampire novel co-authored with Henry Lewis Sanders.

You may contact her at:  tlrelf@gmail.com

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