First, the hurrying
seed. Trying to open
the night with one
light. Hint of tree
sap & sawfly. Rivers
awaken. Stony
asteroid whirs through interstellar
black. Somewhere
a jawless lamprey, mottled
humpback. Primordial
time of mite & mastodon, when
you thought: I, too, want
milk. I want heft & pelt.

My teacher, you know
the facts & possibilities. I feel
you opening like the Creator’s jumbo
Hefty bag & out of you
tumbles the prehistoric
hedgehog, thumb sized & worthy
of idiom & lullaby. You always
have something for me—
thorny seahorse, soft fontanelle
of a newborn, a pleated saguaro
& the freckled elf
owl that lives inside it. Perhaps

some think of you as chaos,
abyss, black hole,
but I say
silence, craving. I say
companion.