Born between rivers, you are infinitelycultivated. Sand backwashed from the ocean.
Good silt down from the plains. Fermentedin Disneyworld bacteria, embryos fasciculate
in polluted foam. The water rises, wrappingits chastity belt of syrup on the rocks.
Sunflowers feast in this grammar. Their wordsare 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. Eggshumming 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 nighthe was the shadow that silenced the rest.