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Peter Desmond is my tax man and a fine poet. He prepares tax returns for writers, artists, therapists, and academics in the Cambridge/Somerville area. He’s had poems published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Compost Magazine, Ibbetson Street Press, The Ledge, Light (A Quarterly), Main Street Rag, and The Raintown Review. Peter is the recipient of three Cambridge Poetry Awards and was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2004.

Paradox

Peter Desmond

You who think the embryo

has a fully human soul,

you who call abortion sin —

hear the paradox of twins.

In the caverns of the loins

a sperm and egg have joined.

Soon the cell divides;

the cluster grows in size.

A future member of our race

drifts towards its nesting place.

What’s this? The cluster splits,

separates in equal bits.

Strange, but true —

what was one is two:

two tiny particles,

genetically identical.

You who claim to speak for God —

don’t you find it rather odd

one egg became two twins?

Tell me when the soul begins.

At the moment of conception,

before their separation,

was there one soul, or two?

Does this problem puzzle you?

Was this a miracle:

two souls in one particle?

Or did one soul split

and half go in each bit?

Or do you think that sperms have souls?

Will you banish birth control?

Does it make you squirm

when I mention sperm?

Monks chanted “Tibi Deo”

as the Church judged Galileo.

But the earth still revolves;

and humanity evolves.

— Peter Desmond

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