Someone might think there is a tiny human fetus
Alive and curled inside each bristled germ
Of the bottlebrush grass in the field this afternoon.
Someone might imagine those infants inside their clear shells
Deep beyond the plumules of the brown seeds
Of the sow thistle, at the bottom of the frost-like
Blooms of the blackhaw. And someone might picture
Each one perfectly contained, drifting inside a coral
And white light of its own, shining in its nurturing oils,
The rich purple cord buoyant over knees and heels,
Across the buttocks, latched to the belly buried
Inside each white spore of every violet larkspur.
And someone might think those tiny unborn children fill
The sea, tumbling in their soft crystal cases, their thumbs
At their mouths, encompassed by seaweed, sucking
With the filefish and the sargassum crabs, secure
Inside the cave of the cuttlefish, inside the ovaries
Of the dragonet, rising with the spittle of the archer fish;
That they are the first whisper heard on shore
By the boneless tadpole of the spadefoot toad, the first
shudder
Felt in the wet paper wings of the darner fly, that they hang
In mid-air in the colored silk sac of the marbled spider,
Mingling with the claws and fangs, the spinnerets
Of the fetal araneus.
And someone might think they can be seen scattered faraway
Across a black heaven, embryos of breathing light,
That they are the point pulsing in the core of every star
Caught like candles in mantles of glass, that they float
Inside the cells inside the cells of their own eyes,
That they see themselves turning slowly and perfectly
Inside their own hearts, the only center inside the center
Around which they turn in the sky and in the earth
And in the sea, and someone might even believe
A thing like that.
Leave a Reply