Abundance

I understand time bends all bodies
toward change— a metamorphosis— 
This way, our years of tunneling like moles 
might turn into veins of gold in the earth, or 
the chains around our wrists into constellations 
no one has mapped then claimed. I wished for
a story of abundance as point of origin, but without 
anyone having to steal fire or be muted into a statue 
or a bird. We remember to skim pearls from the froth 
of rice wine, decanting a sacrament for wonder. 
Before lowering our heads to drink, we hang 
cuts of meat  in the branches for the ravenous birds
of death  or uncertain fortune— You hear them stab 
the water, beings that can swallow a thing whole.