UNGENESIS

I was young, a myth, chewing

the apple. I slept in a hemisphere

of coats pushing out of the flames.

Every city burns, I know,

though I’m not a mystic.

There are so many ways to be

betrayed by a country—

My ancestors—goat bones,

stars in the butcher’s thumb.

They live in the milky river

that surges through the mountain

burdened with our names.