One fifth my weight,

I hop along the gray landscape

As if in slow motion:

One leap, two leaps, three -

A squash, a press, a smush

Of my boots in the dust.

They leave behind an imprint

That will soon dissipate.

Here it is all quiet,

Save for the deep huffs of my breath echoing off the glass just inches from my face.

I observe the waxing blue planet

That I call home,

And reflect on how similar I am to these boot-prints in the dust.

It is dark here.

I close my eyes.

I breathe.

In. (Hcch)

Out. (Hfff)

I open my eyes to find myself tucked in bed,

Staring at the ceiling,

Knowing that I need only close my eyes again

To return back to where I’ve never been.

Slurred stanzas,

Sambuca smooches

Serve salvation:

Squalid circumstance

Squanders sanguinity;

Still somehow survivors smile

Stubbornly

The ancient creature dances in her rainbowed shell

Extraordinary sense of smell

Vision unparalleled - 12 photoreceptors, 4 times as many as my own

How can one ever imagine a world so vibrant, so rich, so full

I’d like to think that she can see

The ultraviolet touch of light

Through the ebbing waves as

She snuggles up to her partner

Outside of the reef

Far from predators

Yet by touching the ocean floor

She’s so much closer than I to Earth’s core

Feeling the pull of gravity

The force that holds us in existence

I’d like to think that she can see

Gravity.

Damn how I’d like to see gravity..

As it is I’ll never know what she sees:

I’m not a mantis shrimp

But shit I so wish I could be

Of Eleanor Rigby and Benjamin Button

Seeking love and finding

-

Neither wide awake, but mouths agape in

Horror

Door hinges broken on the way

Out

About to be saved but whisked

Away

By the winds of yesterday

The only touch known: their own

My own

hand scraping hand half-heartedly

Clapping as cloudy curtains draw

Upon the waned crescent

Not another blessed

Soul in the room, in this

Lonely space we knew

Only me and the moon and yesterday’s blues

My dreams

What good are they if they

are forgotten

by morning

Snuffed out by blankets of the sofest kind.

What good am I if I

forget myself

through mourning;

The weight of this new reality pulls down

the corners of my mouth, tugs on

my eyelids.

My dreams

What good are they if they

are forgotten

through mourning

Snuffed out by blankets of the sofest kind.

She wakes,

Tends to her children, pinching their cheeks and tickling their lungs

Hungry, she sets the bushes ablaze - the ashes drift towards the green carpet beneath

She is reminded of her own fleeting existence

Soft tears fall

But they pass, replaced by gentle sighs

Her face clears

She takes a moment to listen to the muffled thuds of footballs passing between feet, the clicking of zippers against brisk-moving bags, the ruffling of feathers tucked away in roofs

She breathes - taking in the warm waft of spices from the café and the dizzying scent of wet fresh paint from the window trimmings of the corner bookstore

Deep twilight begins to set in: time to bathe

The slick cobblestone in the golden light of the street lamps

And kiss us on the nose goodnight

She flicked her rope against the carpet to the drumming rain; her body lay flattened upon the ground. As squeaks escaped from tufts of fur, her ears remained tucked back behind her head. The eight squeakers, all equipped with ten talons primed for pumping, began their bi-hourly ritual.

And not a beat was missed.

Walk,

Sit Down,

Stand Up,

Repeat.

Walk,

Sit Down,

Stand Up,

Repeat.

Walk,

Sit Down,

Stand Up,

Repeat.

Repeat,

Repeat,

Repeat,

Repeat.

I'm

Not Quite

Sure If

I

Will

Ever Get

Back Home,

Repeat.