DIAGENESIS

we children crumble shale in tiny fists in honor of stratigraphic horizons,
mirror worlds where the source of nausea remains giardia,
      where microscopic invaders are, not embraced,
            and you have never squeezed your breast and sent milk
            arching playful across empty air into our open mouths.

somewhere you exist only as diagenesis, the relationship of matter to mineral,
               and know nothing of motherhood.

elsewhere, work means making music from the skeletons of white pines
and you have never fought on sleepless nights. the deposition of your own mind.

evolution begins to tell the same stories over again, repeats generation and migration.
   until memory becomes loose, old elastic crackling under touch.

here, previous studies have also considered the existence of carbon copies,
the possible relationship between hospital space, home birth, skin time,
and how quickly the body puts itself together again.

four children—evidence of the brain as original, unreliable narrator,
            organic matter altering itself to tell a new story.

yet it is easy for us to find what you've mislaid.

here is your mole on our chin / cheek / hip / thigh. here are your missing core samples
years deep in our forearms. here is copper in the ground, your spine going green with age.
    here, we will even help you dig.