taxonomy

make a jungle gym of me,
the metal bars at night where
we all hung our old shoe sizes,
each pair full of mulch & pebbles.
yes, peach-footed human.

i want to swing from species to
species, test the bird-neck
& the bivalve-- mussel & 
muscle. opening my mouth 
to fill with water, i'll
call this darkness a gill. 

flick me phylogeny, 
the light switch god tucked 
behind each of our necks.

would we have love
in other bodies? 

an arctic mouth, 
a few less organs to
keep track of.  

would it be quieter?
would sleep come with less 
questions & more handwork. 
the classification god. 

i hope to come back 
without quite as many bones,

maybe a shark, their fossilized
teeth aching in my drawer,
my own mouth evolving rows. 
seats in a theater.

call motion & water.
we must not stop, cut a branch
with finger nails. i want
to keep all the tetrapods
for myself. 

yes, brothers.

will someone come & 
tease out my veins, make them
solid & climbable? 

if you find my body 
like this in the playground
past dusk 

will you hang upside down? 
try yourself Osteichthyes--
the bone-wearing fish

i will collect our eyes
to use as marbles on
the blacktop. there will be 
scales shaved off to make mulch.

& when all's said & done we
can come back,

force our feet, the human-ness
comes back as furious
need for shoes.

i kneel to help tie yours.
we're animal-bruised & small.

whispering under a flashlight
about growing up

to be dinosaurs. about all
the teeth the shark will
lose & slip under his pillow
for quarters.