3 Poems after Jean Follain

MARGIN

After the drought
children go barefoot
into the river bed
hunting arrowheads
and grinding stones
male and female
bottom muck
sucks at their toes
their silence
holds cries of birds
watching them
from air
the birds stare
from dark branches
as though a movie
they can almost remember
is being replayed

BREAD

As genes are being spliced
by machines in the night
creating new creatures
chimeras for tomorrow
someone is still baking bread
behind the dark storefront
where someone pauses
at the plate glass
to look inside
to see a body
embracing another
there in the back
and know
it is illicit
it is alive
a third thing
not quite human
and the night
between everything