Lulu and Nana are drafts; edited before they are published,
in secret, He is bent over translucent twins
in a cabin by the fire while snow skims
the sky outside, He takes his red
pen and his scissors named
CRISPR and he snips
their DNA here and
then there like a
gloved boxer
making a
paper snowflake
and in the
story He puts
a squiggle through
HIV and with a glue stick
He tacks the ends of the double
helix back onto itself and reads it silently
to himself in Chinese, to catch any errors, then
He reads it again aloud in harsh English before he retypes, and
saves.
He is tired so their names are simple, Lulu, and
Nana, now edited and ready for printing
between the unedited thighs of their mother,
ghostwritten into the cradle of the world.
Halfway North 