Of Genesis

The origin of every book is loss.
There is not a word

in the beginning
and language always listens

to its end. Tell me
what has left its mark

upon the names you give to stars
you cannot see

and I will try to break the sentence
into something

strange enough to trust.
Look, the world is blue as death

down here already. The air is poisoned
by our breath. It is getting difficult to teach our children

how to speak by speaking

Credit

Copyright © 2022 by Nicholas Gulig. This poem appeared in Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Fall 2022Used with permission of the author.