Inkblot

The spider drool and the speed
of it flung across the page and how immediately
the mind begins its work —
knitting, fretting. It is the element of chance
I can’t get used to — you
toss sticks or stones on a bare floor
and believe the future
is spelled out. As it might be? As it is?
Yes, Molly Bloom tells us, I said yes I will Yes and
my chest never fails to feel flayed,
open. How it was when I learned you
were to be born. Inkblot,
accident.

And so the indigo spreads through the
fabric of the page. It is twilight. It is delta
fanning to ocean. The hour birds
flap upwards like stones flung from
a hand. The cry of you like glass,
and the water spraying outward, stalks
and petals flying everywhere.
Something like what dancers wish for
when they pretend to be willow or
the snowmelt of the river. Love, they call
it, bread, war. The quickening in them
as their bodies flex, open.