trout

Genesis

if this world is matriarchal
you cried and cry the light
out of my eyes look
here Father Sky’s tail is
the colour of Mother Earth’s body

as Mother leaned over
the stream your spirit
entered her

to the Ashanti of West Africa
you were made
over from Mother’s blood

                              she turned
desire for flesh to flesh
that cries

in rural Malaysia you
curled around my cortex
swirled through my aorta

                              I spat
you into her womb
wordless

connected with ancestral souls
through the fusion of gametes
and the phases of the moon

                              you flex
fingers and toes
as proof of the future

if that world is patriarchal
you cried and cry the light
out of my eyes look
there Mother Earth’s tail is
the colour of Father Sky’s body

Early 1992, Cathedral Square, Christchurch