mule

i used to have answers
to the question, "what are you?"
all of them were guesses.
like the sailors who found sea monsters
in the faces of giant squid,
i see craved language. i was reading
something yesterday about mules.
about how they are the end
of a bloodline, the horse & the donkey.
it is rare an ill-advised for a mule
to have offspring. instead, they become
the bookends of centuries.
these days i get asked "what are you?"
more often than ever before. 
i'd like to say "a mule" but i do not
live up to that. instead, i let the words
turn into centipedes. put my face
on a dinner plate & say nothing at all.
if i have learned anything it is
that you lose a thread every time
you try to make yourself edible.
i focus instead on my hooves
& my hands. i build as many towers
as i can. leave the doors open.
maybe i am a man today & maybe
for moment i am my mother.
i wonder what the mule's parents
think of their child. if they look 
at him & do not understand how
he arrived. if he feels the same,
gazing into creatures, none of them
who look like him. it is easy to believe
that you are alone. much harder to see
the world moves because it is carried.
i remember the first time i met
someone else like me. i will not tell you
what i mean by "like me." 
that is my little secret. but, i met them
& i saw sedimentary rock. lineage 
as horizonal & not just a vein. 
my father laughs at the moon.