I cross the corpus callosum:
clumps of
gray rocks
transmitting voices
from
the
other side of the river
to the other, pulsing with
uncertainty.
Left ring finger's bones rub,
lungs suck in sweet scent
of cedar stacked by the side of the road, and hauled to
bridge a stream
that no longer flows, like the grammar
of spoken words.
One day, trudging out
of the forest,
I sat next to
a man
with a mane of
white hair and a smile creeping
across
his lips like a caterpillar crossing a downed tree.
By the depth of
the lines circling his eyes, I could see
the
imaginary
animals
are not
treated in a more
fantastic
manner or
given any
special attributes
or qualities
that
would
serve to separate
them from living animals,
except
that our
deepest
thoughts cannot
be
conveyed. So we
listened
to
aircraft
roaring over-head.
the imaginary: P.
Gravestock, “Did Imaginary Animals Exist?” In,
D. Hassig, ed, The Mark of the Beast: The Medieval Bestiary
in Art, Life, and Literature. New York, 1999.