Origin

That evening, while the pasta boiled,
the man said to the woman

“Let them be white . . .”
                                    And as though the earth
rumbled and shook—or rather grew

from inside a slate of nothing,
three gold-skinned balls spun into the air

and broke open: many years later,
when my arms and legs turned solid and cold,

my throat a canal, my whole body a bridge,
the saltwater stilled and darkened:

the man and the woman, turning off the stove,
poured wine into goblets marked by X’s

and slow danced, the decision made.
In the cloudy glass now I imagine I see

empty hands filling themselves with other hands,
letters I can almost decipher—yes,

tell me I belong here diving
into my own center: my own self

an unknowable reef—