Fecund verse, the nature of germination, life itself.

When considering its cooling,
Looks like the curve of the bowl
You’ve placed it in,
Or the underside of an exposed breast;

Darwin makes dinner, And it’s not as complicated as it seems. Time passes insistently In his kitchen of stone and oak– The hearth stoked, the knives Always sharp. His ingredients stalk one another Across the table tops; Wait in ambush behind earthen jars; Growl and Hiss and Chirp and Call in the pantry. Darwin’s dinner Selects itself, naturally. The least fit is best for him. He does almost no work (aside from warming the oven And collecting the cutlery). He places in a pan The mangled and extinct; The mate-less and exhausted; The too easy prey perhaps still gasping On his counter. He plucks mammal and invertebrate From his plate, Without prayer of mastication– Swallowing elaborate swallows (not incautiously). Darwin’s dinner Tumbles down his…

In the hot anticipation of proposed domesticity, in the warm condescension of love, linen napkins are purchased with partner, unthinking, in the aisles of a Target superstore.