"Ex Nihilo (in animali)" by Angelica Esquivel

I used to refuse to 

wear my glasses, & 

with my poor vision, 

a squirrel squirming 

along a birch tree 

looked like a birch 

tree squirming along 

itself. As my eyes 

struggled to focus, 

the streetlights burst 

into wiggly amoebae, 

& the comb-patterns 

on the ceiling began 

to dance in the dark.

An offering: my first 

glimpse of the animal 

that exists in every-

thing—in this unlit 

candle, in these birch 

roots, in this rock, 

in these silver swan 

scissors that came from 

nothing but now burn 

with pulled-apart life.

Angelica Esquivel (she/her) is a Xicana writer, multimodal artist, and educator from Fostoria, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Poet Lore, Barrelhouse, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She received the 2021 Zocalo Poetry Prize and 2022 Roadrunner Review Cover Art Prize. She is the 2025 YpsiWrites Writer in Residence. Angelica lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on unceded Potawotami, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Wyandot land.