| | Searching I hold earth in my hands,
sacrifice my manicure
to wet black soil.
My palms are black.
I study them
and see the fortune teller’s lines,
a relief map of my soul.
My nails claw deeper
past rich topsoil
through layers of sand,
earth’s record that once,
before man,
the ocean was here.
Deeper, deeper to orange-red clay,
southern clay,
so much clay
the whole world is orange
like a sunset.
I am searching for seeds planted
when the first woman rose from the sea
and the first man fell from the sky.
I come
from mother
and mother
and mother.
| Now me.
Childless,
searching for some remnant
of my daughter,
some sign that she existed,
that once, in the chain of lifetimes,
I gave life,
because I do not want
my mother’s birth
to end with me.
|
