Interrogators of Orchids

What do we do? We birth the new citizens
& answer their bodies with our bodies.

We rock the new citizens to sleep.
We clothe them with skin & stamp

their passports with milk. We teach
the new citizens to walk & speak.

We show them orchids & ask,
What do they look like? What would you ask

an orchid if you could ask it anything?
We show them wind and light in the trees

& ask, What does it sound like?
We hold their hands in our hands

& rub their palms together in small circles
& ask, Do you hear leaves touching

each other? We teach the new citizens
to question landscape. We teach them

to love by questioning, & they ask,
Where was I before this place, before

your body, before, before? We birth
the new citizens—interrogators of orchids,

interrogators of air—and bring them
as far as we can. We bring them

to a kind of border, signed & stamped.
The world is a letter we leave them

to steam open. We let them see
dappled shadow under the trees

& ask, How does light not lose its patience
between the sky & the ground?