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.
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