BIOLOGICAL POEM
In your father’s home the universe came
in one, unstitched
to me awake, to hear
the darkly knit celestial breathing––
what does it mean
to you, the black calf
un-surrounded, lonely, we say ––
what does it mean to you,
leaves in the swimming pool swirling and
absent as from a distance some light
changes the color of the water
a secret definition of fatted
appears: the woman,
always loving you more,
in the forest buries her medicine, descends bare from
the hill and you never know the difference.
Caroline O’Connor Thomas is a writer from the Hudson Valley and Southern Maine, who currently resides in the Bay Area. She received her MFA in Poetry from St. Mary’s College of California in 2014. Following graduation, she was invited to participate in Tin House’s Summer Workshop as one of their 2014 Poetry Scholars. She is the author of the chapbook Unusual Light Source (White Stag Publishing. For more on her writing and whereabouts visit carolineoconnorthomas.com.