what began as salt,
as blood and need, blue and
winged and laced
with spools of astral milk,
what began a sweet ache,
thunder of swifts,
the softly closed eyes of the air,
vertebrae, a louse,
what began as the ceremony of distance,
the ubiquitous dusk,
as barbed wire,—became us.
what began in winter,
abandoned by clouds,
innumerable white,
limbs weighty and mute,
sleek tusks of ice, a moment pierced
and perfect as night
mewling its clarity to the stars like a soul,
became us:
pewter and lye, spires of frost,
jazz glistening,
eyes loud and wet
and cold as new mouths
yawny at the womb’s eclipse.
pink nothings, tiny as a universe.
what began as salt became us.
and now. now—herons, galaxies, the great
music, honey and fire;
now the world, heaving and
taking and bristling
and true.