There are fifty thousand bats flitting around
in your dank and cavernous brain
but fold your hand into the soft sun-dirt
and believe in the shape you have left
believe the earth discovers your tender print
and guides you towards a cholla blossom,
or a darkling beetle,
maybe a cluster of lavender milkvetch
and a heart-shaped stone, as if to say
something before language
something that rustles your loom and swiftly
pulls the thread of your body towards her
swaddled between clay and colostrum sky
between yucca pollen and raven wing
your fledgling cheek burrows
and opens her desert skin
as she hums into your ear
this low note,
a stripped song,
something before language
and you believe in it.