embryology by Arati Bendapudi

tell me again where it all started

with the egg, 

or was it the chicken?

or perhaps, neural crest cells, 

endoderm, mesenchyme?

my mother tells me trees hold the answer

but does she mean the nimble branches of my texan backyard

flexed and reflexed as if struck on the popliteal

or those with leaves of palmar quality, 

mango, banana, neem, 

held up to the sun to show the flush green veins?

or maybe before, with the ocean, 

ebbing like your heart under my fingertips.

a moon ever changing and everlasting 

the tides my great grandmother wished on. 

after the cell

after the pharyngeal arch

when your tongue rolled out of you

like a boulder on a hill 

before grief, or love, could sit and become a person in your mouth

and the only word i knew was your name.