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O, Terrestria
At the insect camp
we are industrious:
Land and sweep.
Land and sweep.
Each leg’s tiny
antler joints delicate
like the hollow of
a hypodermic.
The comb, the queen
cannibalized, the living
larded
with the sap and tar
of grief. We are in bed with
bristles and like the rats’ rats,
thorax-heavy in our formaldehyde
we glower deep inside
the walled-off wall.
The spider-fat centipede
escapes up the seam of grout,
pauses at the carrefour
repeats to himself
All men are equal.
All men are equal.
Who now is crossing
the Delaware, sanitizing
and unsanitizing the ligature?
The machine that
beats our swords into
ploughshares is broken.
Ants, lifeless.
Dirt, lifeless.
The snails under the leaves
satisfied, unsatisfied.
There was movement
toward the abyss.
A visitor, a saboteur,
brings an owl dead in a box.
The lid does not fit but
how important is it
for us or the owl?
Breathing out or in,
the direction matters less
if we are compassing destruction.
If our spines turn gossamer
and we float up and out.
If some hover for a time
then wash down, filtered by
small stones, crushed shells
peat, bones, quiet. |
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