The first time our eyes met, everything evolved.
My lungs expanded at a rate of six cubic centimeters per second
to keep up with the amount of future times you’d make me lose my breath,
and all five of the Great Lakes flooded their banks
in preparation for the torrential downpour caused by the earth and sky
turning themselves inside out from the loudness of my heartbeat.
My elbows elongated, my thumbs became double-jointed
so it would be easier to hold all of you;
the floors in my apartment developed arthritis from the beating they took
after all the pacing in anticipation of your arrival.
Somewhere in San Francisco, a fault line widened
as the soil smiled in joy and a thousand boulders fell in
like broken teeth. The cornfields outside my house
finally stopped whispering long enough to hear you breathe my name.
Overnight I shot up seven inches,
one inch for every day of the week I couldn’t live without you.
No wonder they call them “growing pains.”
If evolution is actually wrong,
then I don’t want to be right.