Dust

He saunters the flower bed.

Barefoot, squelching.

Skin sticking and releasing.

Clutching him, the mother clay.

He takes in a salvo of green arcs,
shooting up from the silty loam,
lanced into soft white trumpets
and frozen mid-flight.

He speaks to them:

You will be called lilies.

His smile scooped at the corners.
His cheeks rose and nestled his eyes.
There, they hatch the blackest pupils.

What delight—

From which part of the garden did he come himself?

He thinks.

For he too was dust.

The garden swelled.

Sweet jasmine air.

She walked her fingers
along the warm curve of his ribs.

His side tremored.
Surged mountainous.

He singled that one out,
broken open for her.

She arched in.

The jasmine at her nostrils
burned musk at her core.

With pursed lips, she simmers, then speaks:

From whom were you made?

Who broke open for you?

She thinks.

For they were both dust.

A handful of dust rises,
spooling with the spin of earth,

and settles,
a figure without limbs,
a shape for all shapes.

It slides forth,
by crevice and curve.

Through every passage, it complicates.
Through every other, it gains purpose.

It climbs a tree.
And then, it knows.

It speaks.
They listen.
They fall.