Let the waters swarm, She said. And She set the birds to flight and the sea monsters She

delivered to the deep. Both waters swarmed and She saw that it was good. Let the earth creep,

She said. Cattle and all crawling things took to the land and the wild animals and the trees and

the fruits of the trees and the seeds of the fruits of the trees filled the earth, and She saw that it

was good. Let something very different happen,

First there was the void—

known elsewhere as Chaos,

which Ovid called a shapeless heap,

which others know as darkness,

which still lurks in the creases of things.

This was the first of all is.

This shapeless abysm of is

has at certain times in history

found people to bother—

one was Botticelli.

One day the void stared at Botticelli

such that Botticelli felt the bluntness

of its stare like an invisible finger

pressed against his forehead.

The ocean opens

its red eye & blinks:

another witness

in the age

of witness, another

natural thing made

man. Which is to say: silent

& intent

on watching itself

die. Some things

can be helped. Some

can’t. For example:

when sand

scratches your cornea,

Wild grapes grew in a torrent

above the hill, the vines

billowing over a wall so old

my sisters and I could roll

the stones out with our fingers.

Grapes overfilled our skirts,

our hands. We peeled

them with our teeth, held

the naked globes to our eyes

to track the climbing sun.

We packed our mouths

to feel their skins pop

in a chorus of honey.

isn’t this, but is. The comma, for emphasis

because his life is immediate down to his nesting,

small breath. We quit speaking once,

when the syphilis was back, during winter —

never snow touching the ground. Only semen,

coconut milk licking his lips.

I told him This isn’t it — we’re at it again

and the moon is out tonight. I could see him,