A brief history of everything

Such a thing exists as knowing. We demand 
more than mere belief. 

What is known: 
Time passes. 
Sky’s blue. 

You wind your watch every morning 
& take your coffee with milk. 

Before knowing there was nothing— 

a hollow, a shape that wants, 
id est, it lacks, 
just like the rest of us, 
calls in silence for knowing. 

There was a time—can you believe it?— 
when I didn’t know your name. 

In the beginning, there was wanting. 

Then language— the word itself, 
“want”— 
a seminal rebellion. 

To agree a beginning must have been 
is to sense an end must be. 

We name what comes between 
& in so doing, give it texture. 

You call me love,
I feel its gravel. 

I’ve called you foolish 
(this is a whim). 

To name is not enough. 
There needs a weight, 
an understanding 
not just the sound one mouth makes 
toward another 
but its gravity 
(a constant bearing down). 

To know I think is bleeding, 
see, we feel 
the world in friction 

measure 
learning in the wounds. 

A voice can say so much. A force can test 
a shape, compel it toward 
another. 

There is for every venturing a consequence in space. 

This is the shape of the world. This is the heart 
in your hand. I asked you once 
where I began, 
assuming you could not be far behind, 
& when we may have become 
us. 

You think I’m occasionally 
unreasonable, yet
indulge me all the same. 

Consider— what is knowing 
is only wind 
or breath & stone 
or earth 
& skin— 

that the whole of what we’ve known
can be carved into a rock 
& turned to ash again. 

I make diagrams in a book you gave me, 
keep it close for reference, to recall 
how strange it is 
I know you.