All DNA is Negatively Charged

All DNA is negatively charged.

Nucleotides:
tri-part pieces;
product of sugar, nitrogenous base, and phosphate,
bound together to make the completed strand,
bound to another strand,
To make the double-helix.

Contained within those ranks of molecules,
within the repeating pattern of phosphate —
electrons in excess —
resides the ubiquitous negative charge of DNA.

Nature is not mistaken, nor has it ever been;
negativity is no accident:
Cells utilize negativity
to store the genetic code
in compact conformations
and avail what they please,
when they please.

The scientist, too,
in her efforts to explore those biological depths
uses the gel electrophoresis:
The migration of DNA from negative to positive poles.

All DNA is negatively charged.

I was taught this by a professor with white hair;
I wrote it down in a green notebook,
and I felt strange as I gazed back at the page
thinking this was something I had already known —

My DNA is negatively charged.

When as a boy in middle school
walking the tiled halls with my dearest friend,
the ceiling hung low like clouds
heavy with rain.

And the lockers lining the walls,
as they were slammed shut
by our still carefree classmates,
sounded like the closing of prison cages.

Once she said to me
I’m always thinking too much, you know?
And I said
Me too.

Later — older — in college,
I sank into the grass after class
and felt that those towering academic buildings
were tumbling down upon me.

And the sunglasses I wore in those days —
on dark and radiant days alike —
they were not meant to keep the sun out,
but to keep my tears in.

For I felt the sadness within my bones,
within the nuclei of my very cells,
my organelles crying out;
feeling the cumulative negative charge
of our creation.

Yes, our creation.
I am not alone;
I am not the only one who feels pain
deep, right down to the bottom

when someone loved dies;
when a young man is murdered under the banner of racism;
when a war threatened becomes a war waged,
and reality gets much too close,

we all have those same molecules inside of us
exerting their electrical force upon our lives
and upon humankind.

It’s really no wonder to discover:
All DNA is negatively charged.