Immortals

Even if you haven't got a green thumb, you can re-grow 
new plants from vegetable scraps simply by slicing 

the bottoms of celery stalks,  bok choy and other greens, 
then sticking  them upright in a shallow dish of water.  

For carrots and radishes and beets, it's the tops 
you lop off.  Science says regeneration is natural. Cells 

have the ability to program a new stem, crown, clove—
From the wilted lettuce, a young, vibrant leaf; a fresh

new body you can harvest for next week's salad.
Eventually, there must be a limit. You can't keep

raising the dead forever; it would  be too 
unnatural, improper. So I'm shocked to learn 

about the baseball player who apparently left
instructions that upon his death, surgeons

were to neuroseparate his head from his body.
His head floats in a kind of dirty-looking thermos 

filled with liquid nitrogen, waiting for a future where 
our science would have advanced to such an edge 

that someone would know what to do to resuscitate 
the neurosuspended brain. Then it would sprout a whole

new body, taut and strong and ready to swing a bat, 
sprint to base, sign a billion trading cards in a world 

we're not even sure will have the same greed we 
seem to have  for stretching out life beyond life.