kaasorrhi

pressure-buried

they moved through floodplains

mud closing around their ankles

fern-shadows

dragonflies loud as engines

𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘶𝘮 tending her nests

careful with the eggs

𝘊𝘰𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪 thin as wire

hunger-shaped

the small bright-boned hunters

we would later group as 𝘋𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘦𝘰𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘦

all tendon and intention

every night

the same moon

white

distant

useless for anything but looking

light on their backs

while they slept

millions of years later

bones becoming stone

stone becoming patience

we find them

their ribs pressed into shale

their teeth like commas

their femurs heavier than they look

rinse the dust away and

label the boxes

wrap each piece in foam

careful

like glass

like saints

then lift them

higher than air

higher than weather

higher than birds ever learned to go

now their fossils ride inside our machines

orbit,

burn,

land

i wonder if this counts as migration

if this is what it means

to come home

their bones older than language

older than flowers themselves

resting at last

in the light they used to sleep under

we call it science

but sometimes

it feels like burial

or prayer

or returning something

to the heavens

that kept it company

for millions of years

the way other boys learned weapons

careful and reverent

pressing seeds into the dirt like stitches

his mother missed the garden

not the angels nor the gold

just the way the light used to shine through leaves

just the figs and the shade

the soft obedience of things that grew

without being asked twice

so Cain tried

rows of barley

lentils

small stubborn herbs

the dirt under his nails his mouth tasting like iron and sun

look, mother,

something still listens to us

look

it leans toward the light

years later

a payphone rings

the kind bolted to the wall

smelling like rust and old rain

I answer

static

then a voice I recognize

older than the weather

says

there aren’t enough magnolia trees

in the garden

like it’s a problem we can fix

like we’re still allowed

to plant things

like exile was never permanent

so I pocket some seeds

and start digging

i was already written

not in ink or light

not in concept or consciousness

but in four trembling letters

A T G C

four letters

repeating like a prayer

ATGC ATGC ATGC

chemistry, they say

there is something small and luminous

kneeling inside me

stitching me back together

they call it DNA

but it feels like

an angel

pretending to be chemistry

only process

repeating itself

carefully

and still

something in us

lowers its voice

a flower does not believe in the sun

it just leans

chemistry gathers

where the light leaves a bruise

they call it growth

but it looks like devotion

practiced without language

so it won’t forget:

the clouds drag their white knuckles

across its face, calling it weather.

if I perish tomorrow,

let me have learned this:

that night is only a deeper shade of blue,

trying to shine without a sun.