In this world,
the tiniest life creates you. In tireless work microbes construct you beneath
the soil, this quiet and appropriate place to conceive a being. You won’t
remember this, but it is how it happens. Above ground, the others are stalking
the forest, retrieving their loneliness, their grief. Meanwhile, your pale and
riven face is composing itself in the darkness.
When it’s time
the others unearth you. They brush the
soil from your vestments, your eyelids, which have yet to open. The hum in your
nerves is still incoherent, still dispersed. The microbes that will be you are
still grieving as they put you together.
The others carry
you to the house, lay you in the bed. It is here you come awake, your eyes
fluttering open, a rattle in your throat. Your family is all around, the pain
dissolving from their faces as you come into the world.
