This is how I began: a delicacy
to my mother, a scallop rocking in
her shell, one in thousands of my father's spawn.

always
to someone
for the first

So this is it, this is you. The eyes are melting
in the white clouds, it is love, love that cuts us

A woman with a sickle creeps up the hill
as she did a thousand years ago

I can see the hooked noses of the owls 
And this is how it always begins. In 
The darkness, everything looking

It rests on tiny roots, a vision of angles,
And lives long.

It has no passion for gossip and little need for the usual,

To keep his blessed armor hard he ate
                                lean meat, cruciferous greens, few 
                                grains. He liked his instants

we called the game Jenny made up driving
back roads through West Virginia

at twice the speed on signs. Foot on

Poor Collins sung the gradual, waiting,
Praying for Eve to arrive. And, while bidding
         For her, sure of failure,

We had been looking at an idol in a glass case,
size of a hand, admiring her tough little knobs
and the ball of her belly some barren woman