Born between rivers, you are infinitely
cultivated. Sand backwashed from the ocean.
Good silt down from the plains. Fermented
in Disneyworld bacteria, embryos fasciculate
in polluted foam. The water rises, wrapping
its chastity belt of syrup on the rocks.
Sunflowers feast in this grammar. Their words
are the river’s when the birds rise, stiff at first,
then fluid. An afterthought brings one back,
mother low in her woven flight, double-checking
the nest. Fingers in the hourglass. Eggs
humming in their sleep. And the snake who lives
in every forest and field, under every bed,
far-seeing and ravenous, who’d eat
his own tail if it meant for one night
he was the shadow that silenced the rest.
