-for Ariana Reines

        to touch the unfolding spiral i take my nightly seat

        at the cusp of fig. i see what i’m supposed to : shapes,

        innumerable, in which we find intimacy : cow, lettuce,

        honey, plough. against the plague of insideness 

        i describe you as milk in sun. soft fat between my fingers.

        rinse lettuce in the strainer : it spirals into & into. 

        how looking into the black eye of the too-skinny cow

        in the compound where my mother was born 

        in the country i fear, now, i’ll never visit again,

        i felt like a miracle. & in the absence of miracle 

        at least there’s an ancient rhythm—looking at you, my focus

        uncouples, meaning beheld. all this discourse

        about fecundity, & insideness being a plague, & in my lineage 

        women invented the plough & penetration was ours 

        & we were meant to perpetually darken, to live outside.

        anyway. in the chatroom i feel dead when everyone 

        snaps on mute. my fertility goddess isn’t interested in sons, 

        the ancient text all lettuce, honey, cow-eyed & beckoning, sun

        flashing me as she wanes & the breeze through cracked window

        touches my spiral just so & the poet who’s actually a prophet says 

        “to receive delight is a virtue.” night comes so for once, i play along

        & come, too, fingers fat with delight, lettuce drowned in milk.