Emily Vance Brown

by KB Brookins

In the beginning, heaven begat earth & earth
begat Sunday. For this one, I’m sitting in a desk chair
crafted by hands, all somewhere unaware
that they’re now touching bare skin. This
is all the proof I needed, but I’m feeling generous
with language, so I’ll try to make this quick: in 
the dreams of my dearest enemies, I am kissing dirt
handled by a million years of fertilizer & dead
skin in a casket made by the son of someone or 
a sibling that was loved by many. Everything that exists
has a birthstory. Some days, I touch mud just to high-five
the humans that willed it. But today, just like any day,
I could never be alone. Today I am polyam with the sunlight
& trees just like Bjork wanted. I mean polyam as in
I talk to them. I mean alone as in there isn’t a human
here to witness this desk chair be a utility & a lineage. 
When I pause long enough to listen, the ancestors speak to me.
They remind me that everything in the world has been
touched & every surface has dependence on something 
using it. I chuckle in agreement & tell them that lonely
is a capitalist concept. I tell the lover coming
from the showerhead to kiss me until I’m clean.