By Rowan Tate
before god and the devil went to war, there were rivers,
human hearts plump as radishes and love
that sat in them like swollen red bellies
warm in the hand like a freshly laid egg. we used to walk
without going somewhere, an audience to god
making creation in the key of g sharp. we used to
look at grass and see the shapes in which language might be bent
before it was something glottal we
stepped on. roasting on a spit, earth sings and asks
to be gathered like pollen from where she has been
scattered, from the restlessness of the soil, she goes up
in smoke and returns to matter.
Rowan Tate is a creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.
