An Experiment

An Experiment

Why shouldn’t outer space show up in our veins,
the pockmarked face of Mars replicated trillions
of times upon the rocky edge of cell membranes.
Lava churning at the planet’s core undulates
like flames, like human proteins, and our lungs
contain dense forests of capillaries. What is there
to learn here. Is the message to stay put, that we
are on the right planet. Or did the galaxy fashion us
from itself as an experiment, bodies as Petri dishes.