"...women carry at least three unique cell populations in their bodies— their own, their mother's, and their child's— creating what biologists term a microchimera..." —Katharine Rowland
We Are Chimera is a journey that threads mother to daughter to daughter. Beyond the elemental confines of cells and marrow, the “sticky web of …veins,” a daughter struggles, and a mother grieves. It is a place where “peonies un-mirth in pink and collapse,” where turtles become an unlikely spirit animal, and ultrasounds are read like tealeaves. As the daughter falters and drifts “like a kite, a satellite, a comet, fevered and orbiting,” the mother doesn’t let go. A baby girl arrives to amaryllis blooms and the winter solstice moon. Her “first breath, an altar” where culture, race, and hope tenderly merge.