everyone i've written about
has left me.
so you must understand
why i will not immortalize you
with my words,
why i won't turn you
into a poem.

maybe this way
you'll stay.

I thirst in my search
for words
that came first

in verse and in song
what's been here all along

since Peking (wo)Man
singing in the womb
at Zhoukoudian

when the first moon climbed
above branches frozen in time -

our rhythm and rhyme -
a memory of a memory
of the history

of how a poem came to be.