Required Modifications for the Transhuman

By Paul Vermeersch

The next Earth will require more of us.

Give us chromatophores for our skin,

for camouflage, for semaphore;

and long, sensitive ears

to radiate the heat. I want to be

tiger-striped in seconds.

I want to hear you coming first.

Give us tendrils to drink the soil, and glorious

elongated limbs, like tentacles akin

to jellyfish, to explore the more

[ looking up ☝] ephemeral frontiers.

We’ll have that spooky eye shine to see

what the depths conceal in wrecks of

the old life, and glimpse the new life in a burst.

And give us membranes to seal each orifice

from drought. Though I hear its nicer in

Antarctica, it’s surely a poor

option for the non-swimmers.

I’ll be all in salamander and you’ll be

in bright cuttlefish. The polar EMF beckons us:

Come darlings, newborns, quench your Atlantean thirst.

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Paul Vermeersch is a poet, multimedia artist, creative writing professor, and literary editor. He teaches at Sheridan College and is the senior editor of Wolsak & Wynn Publishing. His next book, Shared Universe: New and Selected Poems 1995–2020, will be published this fall.