HENRIETTA LACKS
So this is how you died,
in whispers that you did not hear?
Left to an unheralded legacy,
a lingering immortality
that connects an advancement
to an atrocity,
modern day breakthroughs
pushed through by cutting edge scientists,
directly aligned with
the Tuskegee Experiments?
My darling,
a lab rat who loved to dance
with her kids and laugh
as if her life held meaning
beyond the meaningless value
placed upon such a simple thing
as consent in lieu of
entitlement.
So young. So bold. Burdened down
with the weight of everything that's wrong
with a coldly clinical eye
toward reciprocity,
explaining away the refusal
to correct a mistake
because of the hit
the stockholders may take,
capitalism clashes
with morality, leaving behind
the dusted remnants
of sharecroppers and a young mother
who loved to flash red nails
and strut in the midst
of an existential crisis.
No easy thing, to find recognition
as a human being,
in a society determined
to downplay such a thing.
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