Clade Song 15

music by Tim Kahl

C. elegans, with Nightlight (after the nematode)

curled
in the petri lid’s
dew
a worm—
no longer
than a comma
but clear
every
neuron
visible
like
the spine
of a thought
too small
to betray you
I watched it
forget
the same
corner
twice
and turn
anyway
the nightlight
clicked on
and it
kept moving—
as if
to mean
were a kind
of muscle

Joseph Randolph is a writer and artist from the Midwest, working across prose, poetry, painting, and experimental music. His books include Vacua Vita, Sum: A Lyric Parody, and The End of Thinking: Recursive Opacity & the Cryptography of Thought. His debut novel, Genius & Irrelevance, is currently out for publication. He was awarded second place in the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and his poetry and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Unlikely Stories, Overgrowth Press, Cartridge Lit, and elsewhere. Music is streaming; paintings are on Instagram @jtrndph