my daughter tells me
more than a basin of gut
a tunnel for blood
or the hopper of want
that made Elvis Elvis
"it's the bone you need
to walk"
out of an ocean.
Did they exchange
their diet of krill
and seal for mosquito
and monkey?
Embedded
in the mockingbird
is there a memory
of whale song
in a green forest
filled with light?
"We don't know when"
the big creatures
returned
to singing sea deep.
"We don't know why"
they crawled back to the ocean
midwife
practiced at pulling life
out of a holy bone.
©
lives in Minnesota and her work has appeared in Boulevard, Alaska Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Agni (online), Gray's Sporting Journal, Cortland Review and Mid-American Review.
Johnson-Miller’s poem “the location and manner of teeth” also appears in this issue.
