In the Beginning

In the beginning, there was your mouth:

soft rose, rose murmur, murmured breath, a warm

cardinal wind that drew my needle north.

Magnetic flux, the press of form to form.

In the beginning, there was your mouth—

the trailhead, the pathhead faintly opened,

the canyon, river-carved, farther south,

and ahead: the field, the direction chosen.

In the beginning, there was your mouth,

a sky full of stars, raked or raking, clock-

wise or west, and in the close or mammoth

matter, my heart’s red muscle, knocked and knocked.

In the beginning, there was your mouth,

And nothing since but what the earth bears out.