Robert Frazier
Your Clone Knows What You Know
Everything until the very moment
of her creation that is
she knows your childhood secrets
your moments of triumph sure
but also the quiet hot afternoons
when you sailed to that tiny island
and gathered whelk shells and driftglass
while the oystercatchers keened overhead
and the westerlies sculpted the dunes
and raked the sea grasses with cool fingers
your clone knows nothing
of what you know now
especially your covert attempts
at recalling and eradicating her
especially your dark jealousy
of an innocence
that you have since lost
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Frazier is the author of nine previous books of poetry, and a three-time winner of the Rhysling Award for poetry, given by the SFPA (www.sfpoetry.com). His books include Peregrine, Co-Orbital Moons, Perception Barriers, Invisible Machines (with Andrew Joron), Chronicles of the Mutant Rain Forest (with Bruce Boston), The Daily Chernobyl and Other Poems. and Phantom Navigation (Dark Regions, 2012). Hispoem “A Crash Course in Lemon Physics” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He’s won an Asimov’s Reader Award for poetry and been on the Nebula Awards final ballot for fiction. He edited the anthology Burning With a Vision in 1984. The SFPA honored Frazier with a Grandmaster Award in 2005. Recent works have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Pedestal Magazine, and Strange Horizons. His poem “Wreck-Diving the Starship” was a runner-up for a 2011 Rhysling Award
