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Benjamin Oppen

World

Since those of ears of mine flag your scalp,
our clownish flaps that sear
in winter wind or any sun, you'll need
that woolen cap your mother fights you into
before your campaign against the snow--
you'd not guess how the day claws and spits.
Not long past she struggled muscles and skin
over your soft bones, stretching flesh like a jumper
to dress the chilly space where you,
in all of history, had not happened before.

It could have fallen otherwise:
In Plato's sphere your siblings are numberless.
Only you, lithe animal, frowning at your gloves
and slogging out into the weather, have wriggled
into substance and -- as if in the womb
you ate a match -- whatever burns in substance.
How many? With all the seed we've spilled
when nothing grew ...
counting worlds is like numbering snow.