World door, crimson your geometry.
Our flesh descends the birth-river.

We spatter the pubic thistle field copiously—
The shared blood.
                              The quickened pupil of the door

Creaks open to the shrill of light. The doeskin
On the cave floor viscid, matted in the torches’

Orb & spill. Our hands grope, stunned
By this confounding plentitude.
                                                  They reach

For the nipple’s new moon. A hand ax
Severs our path to the firmaments of water,

The birth cord flung onto the snow. The new moon waxes
With a droplet of alabaster.

We are thrust before it. The mouth has learned to wail,
To fasten, to conjoin. We swallow & we still.

   Contributor’s notes

   Introduction
   Something of Us to Prove Our Afterlife: Notes on “Ochre”
   Table of Contents
   Acknowledgements

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