The Governing Vessel Poem by Becky Dennison Sakellariou

The gray green fields of my arteries heave
like the earth behind the plow, soil
before the seedlings, the roar of the very first
universe suspended in my throat.

Like dim islands under the sea, a red kite
climbing into far blue, naked geckos
stunned on a stone wall, we are the field.
The skin across our eyelids knew this
the night our bodies stopped at this house.

Do I have to stay in this body? my son asked.
I long to stream out toward the earth’s edge
to people who are rocking in grief,
to children of clouded eyes who cannot reach
the spaces between their fingers.

Edison did a thousand experiments
before he got the filament right. Tonight, red peppers
are strung like slices of salted liver, mushrooms flame
orange, ring the base of the eucalyptus tree.
We lie mute across the palm of God.