Sarah B. Cahalan
NEWBORN
Internal to the rock is rock,
and drifting from its sides are weeds.
Milky streaks whitewash its top
where cormorants spread
heraldic batwings to the wind.
If things were other I could stand
a while beside the rock, dissolving
until whatever shifts inside
and I am bird and shit and sand,
a barnacle, a recursive shell,
algae that grows cell by cell,
the moon that pulls the water up.
But now some warmth shoots through
my chest,
I’m calcified. My shirt is wet.