I eat
my mother’s words
long before they
are given voice
deep within
her innards where
they are formed
I lie curled and
waiting
belly to
(egg)
belly
we exchange
subtle privacies
we speak of dirt
and deforestation
foreign things
I
eat my mother’s words
her
shuffling grunts
the
hiss of watercress on
her tongue
a yellow universe
opens
within the crack
(her great body’s footsteps
long receded)
I will swallow the last word and
u n b e n d
---
(First Shelled Life poem of 2013! I've neglected this project so badly. For anyone concerned, this marginated tortoise hatchling isn't deformed; it's just newly hatched. It's been living off that yolk sac while in the egg, and in the days following the hatch, it will absorb the yolk and its plastron will harden. I've found conflicting credits on this photo, so I'm not sure which is correct. For what it's worth, Wikipedia credits Richard Mayer.)
