& it’s the most ʰᵃˡᶠhorsen thing to try to stay

                                    {half :: human}

by making excuses. I’m not ready to leave

        just yet, haven't
            the faintest idea

why, say, everything that fits me is still a little too big,

always a little too long in the sleeve
so my cold hands are always warm.

How did this sort of thing work itself out,
while, never mind the season, I'm reaching

for the top shelf, the flag on the mountain,
a ladder's last ring, friendly hand lifting me,

squeezing onto trains, humans hold the doors for me,
as if not taking up too much space is a good thing,

                          the best thing, half-step
                          not yet open-

           lipped
           joyous, a second lit

at the tunnel's end? As if thy neighbors

will return to strangers, in the way
trains derail, whole families go missing,

sock lost in a laundromat, mere nuisance, forgotten,
move over, kiddo, duchess, dame, & so what, & what's

more they get a little trigger happy, sure, have issues, reservations,

                          party of six, minus one, they still grieve
                         & cross countless county limits & walled cities

          to spread happiness, wildfire, weeds, virus, preach

always someone else is a demon & the lay of the land
insisting upon itself as how things, all things, stand.

I never knew where I fit in. I drag my feet
through sodden sand & roll up my sleeves

which still fall into the water, the oil-slick,
tin-canned, six-pack-plastic expanse

in which I'm still making excuses,
asking for forgiveness in endangered

speech, my cold hands growing colder,

so far from whales which know not one world
or two but three— and yet another & can't imagine

     ringing

through the outer spheres that brought you here.
If I ever stopped believing, would love itself die

                    a little, which might not be

just a little, just another day I'm carrying
my bone-dry raincoat over my shoulder,

bunched up, between

forecasts of heatwaves & hurricanes, a great
flood, the world ending, if you could just see

how I’ve seen dying roaches & dry creeks, & the dirt beneath

earth::orses' feet, ants who never sleep
amid the apostles' catacombs, & fields

& fields overrun with magpies & locusts,

               even if your most loving touch could not save

                            the bones of ancient equine now extinct,

                                     if again I had to almost die

                  for you to get to me

        a little too late
                   I'd still listen for you,

in this sea-leaving
pull I can't quite

             perceive, this no-stars  

breaching the sky, & there's no sea I've left

                                 which you've not uneased, this
                                 wherever time goes, you & I

                                       & what last stars I away
                                       will bind far

                                       from them static
                                       & plain say what

                           last stars die I have
                                       been to have died

                           anyway