Epigraph
we will call each other new names, names which have no words,
names which are a growl, names before the birth, before the natal dawn, before the egg grew fingers, eyes and toes,
before lungs were seas, before the little deaths, before she had a name and he had a name and the name was a thing to be said aloud.
we will call each other, but it will be a scramble of every sound, the cut gristle, the lake lapping, the mother's hum.
your name is muscling my tongue, it is threading the trees, the roots and bark and leaves, it is the birds of prey who nightly break from branch, beak bent beseeching.
i have heard them call you, call you, call out, but
the mouths of birds of beasts of men cannot contain you.
i will name you beauty as the earth does every
broken, blooming seed, every flower's full deep
throat caught open gulping sky.
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© 2018 Monica Lewis