Early Warning Systems

My ancestors knew how to listen
for sound before it even became
sound— for the tremor in the forest

canopy before seeds helicoptered
to the ground, for the rip in the air
through which a faraway storm first

tested its breath. It's a listening
that begins in the gut, that room
in the body where they knew

interrogations take place under 
a naked light bulb swinging 
from a scaffold of bone. 

They learned to trust the call
of shrikes in the field, slugs
shriveling into themselves 

at the first whiff of toxins in
the air. When I pause mid-breath
without even knowing why, it must be

their presence alerting me to the smell 
of smoke, from having lived through past 
fires. Obeying intuition, the body inks 

a more visible map through minefields, 
as if to signal that danger itself should 
step aside from knowing we've seen it.