Microchimeric

In the tissue-lined channels of my body, 
the cells of my children drift like lanterns.
They flicker with messages encoded long ago,
carrying bits of story that remain on this
side of the water. Outside, they row
in the wind through their own cartography,
sometimes returing to the port of their first
origins. Sometimes I am the lighthouse keeper,
and sometimes I am my own vessel, trying
like them to breach treacherous depths
to reach a calmer sea. Across the years
and all this distance, I want to believe
there is still a quiet hum of signals at 
cellular level, and that as long as they 
are there, none of us could ever be lost.