After land descends, becomes
a soft larval skin, borne down beneath
this new sea all things with
sap and blood break inward
and thunder rides the cattle fields
as you,
stopped on the step, mothy grin, float
pistachio shell canoes across the lawn
predicting how soon
a scudding light will return. To the
outside
As stones go swimming and grow alfalfa tips,
we’ll learn to live here
a second time
Words sink in a flood, I said. Words
find their teeth when they worm
through mud, promising things
Kith
used to mean knowledge, and later
one’s native lands. Now, our likeness
roams as silt through aquifers,
breaths back from culvert cracks
across the fern gully
Our children are busy
sowing brassicas along the coal seams.
Unseated, in abeyance, this land
is a limber coin.
Still prone
Still pleasant for
the pigeon who visits us at noon
Her arcs are careless but she coos
Over time, this sound will soften up
the hunting grounds
and birth flax