You’re One Round

Within the long genome
Of a given species
Breeding populations,

A sequence essential
To a full, healthy life
Evolves into versions

More counterproductive,
Selecting for proteins
Good at regulating

Versions of that sequence
With negative impacts
By chewing up mutants,

Whereupon new mutants
Evolve, whereupon new
Proteins evolve. So on.

What the organism
Of one generation
Knows is only success

Or suffering amid
Successes. Then it goes,
Completing its one step.