Horizontal Gene Transfer (HGT) is a key mechanism allowing bacteria to enact genetic changes in response to shifting environmental conditions. The swift lateral movement of genes makes possible antibiotic resistance, which is an increasing medical and ultimately cultural problem. There is evidence that HGT also takes place between species. Bacterial DNA appears in the human mitochondrial genome of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) samples. Responding to a recent diagnosis of AML, this creative piece imagines a literary form of HGT. Adjacency is intrinsic to the conceptual and formal concerns of the text. Moving back and forth between essay and poem, between the personal and the planetary, between the real and the imagined, and between the right and left margins of the page, this piece unfolds beside itself, exploring the lateral movement of memory and family history through concerns with antibiotic resistance, illness, writing, and science. While there are no embedded citations or footnotes, a glossary of terms (Appendix 1) follows the main text, and a brief bibliographic essay (Appendix 2) at the end identifies cited sources that correspond to a list of references.

水平基因转移 (HGT) 是一种关键机制，使细菌能够响应不断变化的环境条件而进行基因变化。基因的快速横向移动使抗生素耐药性成为可能，这是一个日益严重的医学和最终文化问题。有证据表明 HGT 也发生在物种之间。细菌 DNA 出现在急性髓性白血病 (AML) 样本的人类线粒体基因组中。响应最近对 AML 的诊断，这篇创意作品想象了一种 HGT 的文学形式。邻接是文本的概念和形式关注点所固有的。在散文和诗歌之间，在个人和星球之间，在真实和想象之间，在页面的左右边缘之间来回穿梭，这件作品在自己旁边展开，通过对抗生素耐药性、疾病、写作和科学的关注，探索记忆和家族史的横向运动。虽然没有嵌入的引文或脚注，但正文之后是术语表（附录 1），末尾的简短书目论文（附录 2）标识了与参考列表相对应的引用来源。