22 - yolk

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.)