Genealogy
Mother was a bowl of fire. Father was a blind baby mouse.
We are descended from a nocturnal beast—owl, or the moth
in its beak. I was plucked prematurely from a small pool
of still water atop a concave stone, carried over mountains
in the throat of a fox, and dropped onto a bed of moss.
There, I became a woman, or a man. I learned to care
too much about the shape of my hair, which is made
of stars, or soot, or the angle from which it is viewed.
When I was no longer a child, I traveled deep into the forest
and stumbled upon a pile of pink and blue fish eggs.
They were coated in a slime of sunlight. There was
a warm scent about them. I knew what had to be done.
We are descended from a nocturnal beast—owl, or the moth
in its beak. I was plucked prematurely from a small pool
of still water atop a concave stone, carried over mountains
in the throat of a fox, and dropped onto a bed of moss.
There, I became a woman, or a man. I learned to care
too much about the shape of my hair, which is made
of stars, or soot, or the angle from which it is viewed.
When I was no longer a child, I traveled deep into the forest
and stumbled upon a pile of pink and blue fish eggs.
They were coated in a slime of sunlight. There was
a warm scent about them. I knew what had to be done.
Bio: Derek Annis is the author of Neighborhood of Gray Houses (Lost Horse Press), the associate director of Willow Springs Books, and the manager of Lynx House Press’ Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry. Their poems have appeared in The Account, Colorado Review, Epiphany, The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review Online, Poet Lore, Spillway, Third Coast, and many other journals. To find out more, visit https://derekannis.wordpress.com/