Half-Ourselves & Half-Not

saltwater-stained, fuse with yours like the blood of twins.

Apes in Mauritania grow stronger, Galileo tells us,

influenced by the sphere of angels.

Here, then—thumbnail sketches

for zoning changes along the riparian bank

of the species boundary, for a chimera.

Like fiber optics, human nerves

lay along glassy bone & spinal veins of a fetal mouse

that will be drowned before ever waking.

A hen’s brain replaces a quail’s—nodding, cooing,

not understanding the change. Less human, less nature.

Less solace in these songs half-ourselves

Here, the sphere of angels & here the sphere of sea.

Darwin, writing in his garden, remembers the sea

like some sleep he feared he’d never wake from.

If my nerves were fed to an osprey, a finch,

could she still take wing? Rain

behind the bedroom blinds, I will wake, won’t I,

to your cells replacing mine, this cape lionness

liver, aorta of a garter snake, &, from a goat twisted

with an orb spider, milk boiled down to silk, gossamer

the structure of Bethlehem steel?