1.
A woolly bundle of infant said, I’m ready to be discovered.
When I live again, I want to be feathered. What vision

makes the blind man cry? Shame arrives in pairs,
the teacher learning from the student. Infant to mother says,

This delightful woman is the same package torn open without cause.
Something with gravity fell upon it. Mother to infant says,

I gathered all the insects into a single vial of cavities. Without these
little decisions how could I sew? She reached that much higher.

2.
I no longer love my foot, says the child laborer. Did nautical once mean
the nothingness that shipped out incontinent pasts? My future clothing

announces me smaller––barked shins and sighing thighs––pinholes
opening rationed egress, light skittering home from its playdate.

Did possible once mean someone else, when flexible was captain?
Delicious ravens slick as oilcloth, villages of appreciative trees.

3.
Quiet enemies nesting in the mailbox mock the sackcloth prison
of childhood’s grasshoppers, wintering snagged plateaus with

vertical icing. Take a picture of the sun’s absence, for example,
and wed a soft disturbing sleep to waking empty-handed.

I’m limiting myself to getting further into this world.
I had a lot to say as a child, but no decisions, only certainties.

I could have listened a little more to my boat, but it kept turning.
I haven’t been here long enough to be there when you arrive.