Some Other World

Some other world,
amoeba maybe
I knew you;
defined the salt of your cells.
Our seconds strung between
atoms
made minutes the
minute eternity of our small lives.
Yet lacking tongue,
could not say the universe of you.

Or coral reef
algae and coral
matter to matter
growing greenly in the salt.
But my coral had no tear
to tell the shade or tint of us.
Just turning with each long tide
until the silica cage
no longer held our two-ness.

But now,
this world,
inhabiting these marvelous machines
our light years hung from star to star
and wanting neither tongue nor tears
there are no words
my tongue is silent as that sea reef
and I use tears to say
there is not time.

Julia Douglass
New Orleans Review
p. 307
vol. 2, no. 4
©1972