A heifer licks her into being.

She emerges from the cosmic salt ice,

a girlcalf taking form.

On the first day her scalp is visible,

dark and matted as a newborn.

On the second her head pushes through.

The divine cow laps faster,

her tongue apprehending with its

wet, rough texture

an essential porosity

at the root of our nature.

The ratio of space to substance

covered by skin, a wrinkling

at the fleshy insistance,

gooseprickling a future.

The body is last

to squeeze through, long bones

folding in on each other.

Here is Saltlick.

She is steady

as a table.

She will show us the way,

gaze sure as mud.

She is our inner bovine,

covered in saliva

and undiscovered minerals.

She unblinks our universe.