Song for Cassiopea

for Kaden, marine biologist


As a child, you were nothing but stalk—

polyp form emerging, latching

onto nearby structures, your body

neither male nor female, still

you create your clones, proliferate

in mangrove swamps—

too warm for many, too polluted—

you are easy in that way.


Leaving polyp form, you are medusa,

telltale bell and arms but no platonic ideal, 

moons backlit in aquaria.

Among your jelly peers,

you seem confused, pulsating 

upside down, elaborate tendril arms

forever seeking.


Swimmers who know are not afraid.

Your sting is mild—not like the man o’ war,

but you hold a secret. Under stress,

you will release your stinging cells, tiny bombs

awaiting prey, distant from your rococo arms 

pretending to be coral.


My child, future scientist, picked you of all creatures

to examine. After navigating stinging waters of school, 

carrying a body mischosen by fate. Unloveable jellies—

bane of bathers, enemy of engineers, useless 

nuisance, beauty of the deep.


Now, this child, transitioned,

buries himself in science, studies

how you protect yourself,

disappearing so easily—

thinner than a contact lens.

I see you stretching back into Cambrian fossils,

doing the hard work of evolution, organizing cells 

into your chosen bodies, accomplishing 

miraculous survival.

Patricia Davis-Muffett

Patricia Davis-Muffet (she/her) holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her chapbook, Alchemy of Yeast and Tears, was published in spring 2023. Her work has won honors including Best of the Net 2022 nomination, inclusion in Best New Poets 2022, and second place in the 2022 Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, and appears in Atlanta Review, Whale Road Review, Calyx and About Place, among others. She lives in Rockville, Maryland, with her family.

https://www.patriciadavismuffett.com/
Previous
Previous

Sanctuary

Next
Next

Of the Macho