Posted by nigel1 on July 08, 2002 at 08:18:08:
Henrietta
He was Bob Tim,
an unlikely name.
Dr. Schindele fused him
with HeLa cells at birth,
then blessed him with the blood
of suicides. Fatherhood
proved too much for science.
Bob Tim at thirteen
was heard to express a wish
for badminton sets, which
made his parents cringe.
At that instant his flesh
turned to cream-of-wheat,
and ran down the walls.
It was Schindele's inscrutable design.
They shut the famished bones
in a freezer, on the off chance
he'd reassume the human dress
(to your scattered bodies go)
but things turned suddenly merry!
He saw the journey half-begun!
And where he journeyed,
he journeyed there in jam jars.
Note: HeLa cells have been the standard cultured tumor
cells used in cancer research for decades. A few years ago the indentity of the "donor" (long dead) was revealed to be a woman named Henrietta Lacks. "To your scattered bodies go" refers to a science fiction novel by Philip Jose Farmer.