2 September 2003 | Vol. 3, No. 3

Six Billion and the River

by ANNALYNN HAMMOND

I was once told the infant's eye

is able to drink water

from a curved leaf in China,

and when they sleep,

birds catch their lashes

and use them to build nests

that never fall.

*

There must be some way to open

the navel, to let the world and all

its memories be sucked in

to the spine, to pull apart

the ribcage and hang

the lungs from branches,

let the wind sing them dry.

*

They say the queen had the Mexican moon

in her movement, and her lips

were the cracked blue of a French death.

She never spoke, only turned

the carved beads of her headdress

until her fingers bled, only licked

the rind of the fruit and smeared

her breasts with mud.

*

I was once told there is a secret

door in the back of my neck,

and if a key opened it on the night

when the most foxes died,

it would release all of history

as six billion blossoms

that would circle every ankle

and then settle at the feet of an infant

born in Africa on the day

when the least mosquitoes cried.

*

After the oceans pull the last grain of sand

from the turtle's shell, I will carry

my only loaf of bread to the shore,

soak it in the salt until the crust loosens

and floats away, then wrap my feet

in beach grass and walk on sharp rocks,

listen to the sound of fish skin

curling in the sun.

*

Today I found a tiny pair of lungs

hanging from a tree,

two gray flowers

crackling in the wind.

The husk lay at the roots,

a purple birthmark

on the bottom of one foot.

I pressed it to my neck

and felt the pulse

of something small

and large, something opened

and something hissed,

my eyes poured out

like water from a leaf.