GOD SAT IN THE SAND AND TOSSED UPWARDS–

CAYLIE HERRMANN

spilling constellations into the dark
            like jacks. We pick up the stars
 
                                  and name what’s left over. You see:
                                              mother holding wailing
 
            infant, dancing lady with
                        full skirts, child learning
 
                                  death from a goldfish bowl. I see:
                                              heart valves full of glass
 
            animals, a mermaid
                        wrong-way-round, sphinx
 
tonguing a riddle. We settle on
            a murder of crows picking
 
                                  rye and you swirl a galaxy in
                                              your wine glass. The ocean urges
 
            its foam to our kneecaps and
                        something about this seems cinematic,
 
                                  symptomatic of something left
                                              behind, dry-bubbled on the sand
 
            in low tide. A bonus reel, strip left
                        on the cutting room floor. I focus
 
on crows in their pack, tongue
            between my teeth while they sparkle
 
                                  and you radiate heat. I know
                                              you’re imagining nebulae, they’re
 
            reflecting in your cornea

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