ammonite 

do you remember not having a skull?
everything rung like saltwater taffy.
you did not have to wake up
like a fried fish stick. instead, we rose
as bottles from the dirt. we held
our televisions close to the chest.
no one had dollar signs in their teeth.
when we opened our mouths
it was only for nectar. visa gift cards
in the daffodils. a plastic bag
to stuff the contents of a frenzy. 
i stand on a street corner in the city
& wonder how my bones talk to one another.
if they say, "lets go back to being
ocean bodies" or if they are just 
the knot work of my fears. i would like
to be a cohesive being. instead, i think
i am most likely a selkie in the wrong shell.
a morsel of pixels conjured to talk 
about lips. the stoplights tell a hymn 
of fruitless movement. a shop door 
cracks a seam in realness. i keep
a can opener in my purse in case
i have to find a way out of this life
& back into the primordial echo. 
radio show about ammonites
where they discuss jesus. they say,
"everything is real to the new species 
if you say it with enough billions."
dead birds piled to make a church.
i consider walking backwards all day.
i arrive at a corner store. buying 
a diet soda & drinking it 
on the same street corner where 
god kicked a tin can into my face.
we might never get back to that headless bliss.
i close my eyes. eat the artificial angel. 
become the glistening of an ancient skeleton.