Mary replies to the angel, ask me again
—not asking my ears
which like shells still surge with your silence.
Ask me this time with your tongue
touching mine. Give your words
to my mouth, let me swallow.
Let me tongue, and taste, and spill
my frail and almost unformed yes
back into you. Let it grow
as will the life I’ll let you plant in me.
So may I know as I’m consumed
that some slip of me is taking root
and strengthening in other soil—
that whittled down I’m not diminished.
My yes runs deep and rises, breaks
into the bloom of your body, as yours
is borne in the long unforeseeable branching
of mine.