Replication, the act of making
            the second once you’ve done it once,

thinking you should do it again, thinking
            it begins as all things begin with

the ideation of the thing since you
            know the Real begins with the Symbolic

always, action following thought: Our
            Baby of Best Laid Plans. Hubris. Poof! Dark

magic. At conception the gamete
            enters a Black Box, says Dr. C.

Even with the most painstaking monitoring,
            we never can tell. Ha! Dr. C belies

without realizing her entire profession,
            without realizing that what she says

is funny: The Black Box That Swallows. My
            Black Box in which nothing can explain why

we can’t get one to stick, or how the two
            other unstickings proved that what was bound

could be easily unbound. The truth: for such
            revocations, we have found no restitution

for cancellation or loss, no credit, no
            exchange of goods. No good. No exhortation

can change anything. Resolution lies
            in resignation; this list of rhymes

scribbled on the back of a receipt.

 
 
 

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Wendy Chin-Tanner’s poems, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous journals including The Mays Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge, The Saint Ann’s Review, and The Raintown Review. She is a founding editor at Kin Poetry Journal (wearekin.org), poetry editor at The Nervous Breakdown, staff interviewer at Lantern Review, co-founder of A Wave Blue World (publisher of graphic novels) and an online sociology instructor at Cambridge University, UK. Wendy lives in Portland, Oregon.