Poetry:  A Story of Cancer by Dilantha Gunawardana

This poem by Dilantha Gunawardana is a part of Kitaab Quarterly Vol-1

I bear an uncanny resemblance

to the man on the dressing table mirror,

the one who navigates the rarely-straight footsteps,

unpretentious eyes, a probing mouth,

the gullible heart, the claustrophobic soul,

the dynamo spirit, reminded always

that I am a metazoan, mammal, primate,

and a man who differs from

a chimpanzee, by 1% of the DNA that

defines a paradigm shift in biology,

but like an ape, in most ways.

Like a chimpanzee holding a stick

harvesting termites, those tiny ever-present

piranha-like monsters similar to a human

holding a computer mouse to take a cursor

anywhere on a MS Word document, to

correct a grammatical error, unlike human DNA

where one lethal mutation can lead to a premature end.

Like brca1 genes in breast cancer, when one

separates one pendulous bedrock from what

used to bear a resemblance to the other,

but can beautify the decades-old marriage bed,

that is tested in all its exoduses of glory,

by the gorgeous man in front, who

makes love both eyes wide open, 

and his third eye, sojourning in retrospection;

the way things were before, that in the contemporary,

is strangely a measure of seeing with

the cardiomyocytes, and less with rods and cones.

Like the majestic dome of the Taj Mahal,

that would appear just as beautiful,

just as breathtaking,

with a flat roof.

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Author Bio

Dilantha Gunawardana, who is a molecular biologist and biochemist by training, lives in a chimerical universe of science and poems.

Dilantha has two anthologies of poetry, Kite Dreams (2016) and Driftwood (2017), published by Sarasavi Publishers (Sri Lanka). Dilantha was awarded the prize for “The emerging writer of the year – 2016” in the Godage National Literary Awards, Sri Lanka, while being shortlisted for the poetry prize, in the same awards ceremony.

Dilantha’s professional website is found here: https://curiositydrivenlife.org/ while hosting a bird photography blog at: https://ornithologynomad.com/.

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