the world’s eyes must have first beheld kindness.
it was the first thing to move
across the hot, emerald-dark mouth of the earth, pressing against its molten
heart like a gentle knocking on the door: i’m here, i’m home, i’ve always been here, and i will always be,
their matrimony written in mycorrhizal hymns
in delicate blood vessels
in the glassy veins on the butterfly’s wing.
it’s an ancient gene, an overpowering
current, that bleeds through their children’s palms
through the honeyguide’s shrill calls to
its human siblings, and
inside a well-kept, clean burrow, where the only sound is the dotted
humming frog’s heart thrumming in tandem
with the tarantula’s.
how loud a sound it must be
and how deafening the world beats when
our tongues hold this first language at
the front of our teeth.