WEBVTT

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This is from "Geography
of the Near Past."

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For Arl in her sixth month.

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Cool beneath melon
colored cloth, your belly.

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A joyous ripening that
happens and happens that

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gently takes root
and takes over.

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A miracle uncelebrated
under an autumn dress

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that curves and falls
slowly to your ankles.

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As you busy yourself
with backyard gardening,

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humming, contained, I
think of your tongue

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at peace in its
place, another kind

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of fruit, mysterious
flower behind two lips that

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open for air, and for
exits, and entrances.

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Perhaps, if I
placed my hungry ear

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up next to a cantaloupe or
coconut for hours at a time,

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and often enough,

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I'd hear a fluttering or maybe
a music almost like the story

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I've heard with my
ear to your belly,

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a seashell history of
evolution personified.

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Your womb is a room where
it's always afternoon.

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