vellum

last night at the circus 
someone was singing "sheep go to heaven
& goats go to hell." i have taken to only writing
on skin. in math class, when the neon 
used to eat my eyelashes i would use sharpie
on my thighs. a teacher with a pterodactyl face
said, "you're going to get blood poisoning."
she made me go wash the poems off.
the sharpie was too strong though 
& the ghost letters always whispered 
as i walked. vellum is a paper made from
animal skin. mostly, sheep. mostly babies.
calves & ewes. something about their softness
makes it easier to receive words. everything
is gospel if you are hungry enough. i ran 
a wild red light last night. i pulled over
on the side of the highway & made paper
a car-killed deer. she was still talking to me.
us both sapling girls. she had beetles for eyes. 
i wrote about my favorite moon, 
the honeydew one that drips nectar down 
into the little stream through our yard. 
breath like a spare tire. i buy a sharpie again.
lay down beneath the sycamore 
& start writing. a math teacher shows up.
i get her to poetry herself too & then
there is a flock of lost genders. the sheep come
but not the goats. the goats are the 
only animals who have discovered how 
to write without skin. they climb the trees
& bleat. if i had a third hand, i would use it
to free myself. i don't know where 
i would go. there would be a paper maker.
a blanket of vellum. a moon closing its eye.
then, the night.