Once,

before this lake turned the color of unripe cherries, before
there was a word for weapon or distance or phone,
a star finished up its fusion thing,

exploded its hydrogen, helium, neon and nitrogen, its sulfur
and iron, all over cosmos town. No one was around,
no one with vision or a craving for lemons.

All there was: stars and exploding stars seeding the universe
with magnesium and carbon, with graphite and diamonds.
All this, and what all else, collected into a pomegranitic

bulge that became our sun, that became the rocky planets
and the gaseous ones, that became the generous
light through pines, us and our armpit glands,

us and our Mother, may I? No, you may not. This was how it began,
before it cooled enough for worms and flukes, way cooler
than that instant when everything that would ever be

became, though it would be a while before figs and plumage,
rain drops and touch. But soon we had gnawing,
and soon we had fathers. Falling water

and falling in love. Before long there was work, and there was wine.
Observances like the Feast of Assumption. Soon after
there was rot and grief. But before that: electrons

and quarks. Protons and neutrons. Somehow, we got hummingbirds
and pavement, dorsal fins and cilantro. Somehow, anger
and shame and faith. Now we are a place

for lace and egrets. Now we have mouthwash and redwoods.
It’s sweet like a good pear, sour like probiotic yogurt.
It began and it seems, like a novel

by Tolstoy, like it will never end, but one day—zip-zap, zap-zip—
the sun will supernova, and we will give back
our copper and plutonium, our aluminum

and titanium. The calcium in our bones will contract into dimensionless
singularity, along with our shiny silver fillings, our stooks of wheat,
our shocks of shocking pink and turquoise hair.