I know / what I don’t know. I know / my lack of knowing is its own kind / of camouflage

Irrelevant Animals

for crisi lee

When they get together, the sky turns
matchbook, green & blue with mad-

ness. Random weather. Random
enthusiasm. Animals sit in a circle

no matter the type. No matter the size
or shape of the font of the animal: she
eats and plays and eats and plays and
east and plaids and hands and sands. I’m not like her! I know

what I don’t know. I know
my lack of knowing is its own kind

of camouflage, that creatures will live
beside me no matter my destination, uphill,

downhill. A beehive, a green-blue water place, a door next-door.
No matter the destination: they are howling

to get there. Beauty, nature, or the sticky
residue beneath this new credit card.

From this moment on I am charging every-
thing indescribable. Every indescribable thing

I cannot describe—layaway, overstock—will live
in my house with me, at minimum the crickets.

Circadian Poem

for Violeta

Seventy-five percent of me is
tethered to the word. What word? Most
of me is tethered to the shape of speech:
small mouth getting bigger. Seventy-
five percent of me tried to make the other
twenty-five percent howl. I once tried
to tell the world it was wrong about some-
thing and had to rest my case, there wasn’t
a pillow in sight, I had to reset my casing.
The cocoon of me, which isn’t even
most of me, is seventy-five percent
of what “he” sees when “he” sees me.
What he? Most of me is only seventy-
five percent of a single word. Most of the
shape of speech is a trying shape. All
trying leads to rest. I unzip the cocoon
and find only a word: Most. An assumption.
His. When I say it out loud it sounds like a
yawn. Seventy-five percent of me is tired
but twenty-five percent of me is already
asleep.

Photograph of Wild sign by Sarah Cook.