Covenant

No words could

describe the

sounds, no

unvoweled

onomatopoeia

could capture

the animals’

distress, the giraffes

kneeling like

lambs, unable

to stand, necks

boaed around

their tiny

enclosure.

Sometimes

I’d take out

the mice

and hide them

in my dress

pocket where

they’d fit

themselves

together

like the dark

and bright

sides of a half

moon. This,

their whiskered

movements

just above

my breast,

gave me

the sense

I was living

in a body

again, something

lost to me

when I boarded

the extinction.

Before, I kept

begging

Noah to build

slower, much

slower, to never

finish, to save

the world

by never

hammering

the last nail

into the ark. What

did I know,

he wondered

aloud. I was

just a vessel,

like the ship. The new

mother

to the world—

and to it,

to God and

to my husband,

like the animals,

captive stock.