LUKEWARM PRIMORDIAL SOUP

Damp soil feels the same no matter the year.
The rainfall that quenched the first plants’ thirst
is the water that spouts out of my kitchen sink,
although now tainted with copper and chlorine and fluoride.
It tastes of primordial soup gone stale, lukewarm
despite the melting antediluvian ice caps.
All bones found in the wet soil
come from the copulation of two creatures.
It needn’t be lovely to be effective,
following its intended course. Those born with teeth
lost them, grew new ones, used them to masticate leaves
or flesh or both.
There were no girls with pink glitter eyeshadow
or tear-stained diary pages
or ripped colored tights.
No ladies to be unladylike with.
There were no boys, and for a good while, no men.
Some of us are still waiting.
God was there, but not the one you’re thinking of.
The one that fills your throat when you find yourself
sitting by the lake, eyes glazed
with the distant peace of waves lapping on rocks.
The God that lives in the algae under your squelching toes.
The air that keeps each heart beating, every lung
expanding and contracting, cousins with the water
that wets the earth’s tongue.

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Sky Allen, 23, Boston (Massachusetts) - USA ✯ substack.com/@skybliss1919

“Sky Allen is a 23-year-old currently earning her MFA on the Fiction track at Emerson College. She has previously been published in Nowhere Girl Collective, Page Turner Magazine, and Chapter House Journal. Besides the obvious love of books, she enjoys pop-punk music, sunshine, throwing things at walls, and overstaying her welcome.”