She was there in the room

Marisa Cappetta 2014

She was there in the room, and in
the petri dish, when they were made.

Her first child, a daughter, is red dirt.
She blew away in the easterlies.

Her second child, a son this time,
is fog bound. He scurries in the valley until

the sun burns him away, drives him into
the hills. He chases wallabies with fingers of mist.

Her third child is a black cygnet.
It paddles up river before it can be sexed.

The fourth child is knitted by her sister.
She splits a stitch and one becomes two.