Michele Mekel wears many hats: bioethicist, educator, poetess, cat herder, and woman. Her work appears in academic and creative publications, and has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, nominated for Best of the Net, and translated into Cherokee. She is co-principal investigator of Viral Imaginations: COVID-19 (viralimaginations.psu.edu).
The Fates
From the State of Nature,
Dopamine Receptor DR2D
came uninvited to my naming.
Never one to run alone,
she brought close companions
from the Province of Nurture.
On one arm,
hung Maternal Depression.
Marital Stress trailed closely
on their heels.
The unwelcome trio smirked,
cast their spells upon a colicky child—
already touched in vitro
by the baneful fingers of Rubella.
One gifted Melancholy
as nursemaid and
constant companion.
Another bequeathed Anxiety
as third wheel
in future romantic relations.
The last,
upon reading my tiny palm,
offered up Ambiguous Loss
as North Star.
231 W. Linn Street
Like a bellows,
doors, windows
open, close
breathing ghostly life
into this tired house.
Restless,
these specters abide
long dead, side-long spied
in halls, along floors
I now pace.
