A new poem by Ari Prakash.

The Ancestral Call

The new moon spins into the distance
like a toenail cut above an abyss
when the world was clean and new and nice
when mountains were hills and queens had
no ants. It clicked into place
the petals, puzzles, puddles, the double
deoxyribose nucleic acid. It made you, it
made me, which means i must watch you drink
water like liquor on a wine-dark night
because you’re being good as you ask
where are you from.
i elaborate, extrapolate, the dots and
thumbtacks, a sad map of genetic mishaps
people that met for necessity, not feelings,
imagine all the lovers that led to you,
whispered no one ever as a family
of branches decomposes and dissolves.
The only reply to the ancestral call
is Tiktaalik with a glub, glub, glub.
Thanks, i s’pose. The Tower of Babel
couldn’t prepare me for this
but better the fish
than no one at all.

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