even the sea

by Lucia Llano for SEANCE3: John Allen Chau

you just can’t go around  
talking to eden about god

a place still so naked & green

where the fruit was never split
good & evil still uncultivated,

amorphously stirring in the sea.

what do we know about god
that eden doesn’t? 

too severed from the stars,
& shell-shocked to even hear
the waves,
we are 

& god, too — a foreigner

knowing nothing of the life
he knotted together

never having
ran his fingers through the silk of water, 
had salt reddening his eyes
been stirred from the dreams of losing life & teeth
by the sound of the first bird


even the sea knows better
even the sea.