Creation Myth
BY EMILY ZHANG
After Mathias Svalina
In the beginning Georgia burned. In the beginning
you were born in a motel pool, all blue fever.
The soda machines in the corner sputtering
with quarters in their bellies, made you think of time,
shuffling and reshuffling. A smokestack, slow lips
of a song, your sister kissing a man with the back
of her teeth as if digging her hands into the calm,
bent earth. All of it soft, bruises flush with light, open
and glowing, blooming and unblooming the way
it is impossible to grow into something unstill.
