pangea
when the earth was flat
and ripe, and riddled with dew
like a newborn child,
the plains just rolled on forever
and savanna turned to tundra
with distance,
only the cold black ocean signifying
the beginning of the edge of the world
in your eyes I found northern Europe,
a muddy ice that split my gaze in two
in your legs, Africa
neat protective muscles that twitch
like a cheetah's, lightly
haired calves luminous
under a savagely red moon.
the two Americas lay side by side
in your heart,
itching with thirst and variation
proclaiming vastness
capable of translating
the scorn and cement of New York
to the feverish heat of Bogotá
but Asia was gathered in
your cupped hands, meekly
offering me tiny
yellow flowers
that came from a sunbeam that pierced
central China
Australia, your hair, smelling of sweat
and sea-salt.
and a million tiny islands scattered
across the length of your back,
archipelagos hidden in your ribcage
Kauai and Oahu wink at each other,
twin landforms,
your kidneys.
~~~
but then the very earth shifted
collapsing mountains, swallowing valleys,
creating lakes and rivers that veined through
the hearts of these broken countries.
and seven lonely continents were born,
each one bitter and isolated
like faraway neighbors that detest a face
they have never seen
~~~
and now we stand here, love,
two brittle continents shaped
from the earth's selfish and nomadic urge
that she then passed on to man
and from then on, the whole world
couldn't stop moving, shifting
and migrating from place to place,
dissatisfied
by every landscape, untouched
by every countryside.
oh, to forge ourselves back together
with crude glues and putties
as if we were a single creature.
you, a jumble of arms and legs
that don't quite fit together.
your palm on my shoulder,
my legs around your waist,
and every desperate gesture
to become one again.
for orin
up close your eyes
are like the insides of houses
gleaming, rich with silence
and sincerity
in the gray-blue advent of twilight
inaudible conversations around the dinner-table
while i walk with my hands in my pockets,
impatient to go home.
Hannah Allard grew up in a small industrial village in Connecticut and now is a junior philosophy major at Purchase College. She has been a lifetime writer but has not pursued publication. Hannah owns a digeridoo and enjoys hiking, debauchery and a variety of artistic pursuits.
