The beginning of the world: flour

water, salt, sugar, yeast.

Skilled hands kneading,

or maybe a stand mixer

of unfathomable size.

I think they should name

black holes like hurricanes,

incredibly dense, matter pressing

together like a ball of dough.

Megan, Josephine, Harriet, Isabel.

Sub-zero storms, whirling light,

frothing waves of gravity.

The universe rises in the oven,

yeast yawning and stretching.

It expands like a breath,

out, and out, and out.

I take it out to shape the dough.

Three-seventy-five, background

radiation, the hum, the crust

cracking, forming slowly.

I score the universe with a knife

letting in air. Letting it breathe.