Beginnings

i revise the back room / in which i think it may have happened, / 
i dissipate the dark / that must have been induced // i revise 
the thick braid of hair / he might have palmed / he might have
coiled / twice around his wrist // i revise / the finger he put /
across her lips / and later i revise the rain / so it stops adoring
the sheen of cracked headstones // i revise the record / so it 
carries the names / of everything responsible for the birth // 
i revise the syrup of secrets / thinning the rice pap // first 
thing they feed to a child