Consciousness moves like Hermes, the Guide of
Souls, through a multiplicity of perspectives and
ways of being.

                      I was a breathing machine, no hill
was too steep to climb until, stretched beyond
the limits of ligaments and bones, Pain arrived,
ageless and aging.

Browsing over the margins, I learned the subtle differences between
the edible ones and the poisonous ones. He had me pick a few more,
and when he was satisfied that I could tell the good ones from the bad,
he said, Hermes hefted a ram whose

horns
curled
down.