Mitochondrial DNA passes on
from grandmother
to mother
to daughter,
they said,
and suddenly
I understood
how easily
a fragment of biology
can become
a mythology.
When someone tells you
they believe in equality,
listen carefully
to how they speak
of the X chromosome.
But listen closer
to the silence
where the Y chromosome
was supposed to be,
but was quietly omitted
for operational convenience.
Everyone remembers
being a mother's daughter;
raised by
fathers whose names
were sold and told
as stories of absence,
their existence reduced
to the space
between two chapters,
forgotten
before the curtains
ever fell.
Misunderstand me
if you want.
Call me prejudiced
if that makes the argument
more convenient.
But singularity
never birthed
daughters
or sons
of mothers alone,
nor did it raise them.
The sperm carries
genetic marks
of a father's stress,
they said.
And yet,
no poetry was written,
no odes were gurgled,
no tombstone was placed
at the altar
of another forgotten inheritance.
As if learning
to be human
wasn't difficult enough,
we now
perform equality
by asking men
to become
male honeybees
and black widows;
valued for the purpose
they serve,
discarded
once the purpose
is fulfilled.
Or perhaps worse;
an inconvenient body
whose only recognised worth
is being
flesh
with a function.
Procreation
or
pleasure.
Nothing beyond.
Nothing in between.
Maybe humans
were never the right gods
to worship
for equality.
Maybe amoebas were.
No genders.
No asymmetries.
No inheritance divided
into convenient stories.
And most importantly,
you are your father
and grandfather,
and
you are your mother
and grandmother.
No singular lineage.
No convenient mythology.
A civilisation's inheritance
contained
within a single cell.
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