From the Fishouse

I want to know the world
by feeling how it moves, as it’s too late

for crawling or learning new lines
or reaching for sex. For many years

I had dreams in which wings grew
into my shoulders, but when I grabbed

for food I starved, and when I tried
to rape or make nest, a mountain

blunted my claws. Yet it was not
a dream when, driving down the 101,

feeling the engine and the willed shapes
of the hills, I saw a hawk lifting

a snake from the grass and thought,
That’s me, I’m both of them,

a winged point and a black whip
flaying air. For some, falling is felt

motion, for others it’s time crawling
with a belly the color of the ground,

schist and blistered rock, where hunger
is a horizon and the sun changes

only for the sake of chaos: sequins
lining my back, or the hood under

which a beak makes noise, but not music.
The four meticulous eyes, always clear.

What can I say other than this was
when I moved from the straight way

and learned that instead of whipping
myself, or molting some earlier form,

I could drop to the rocks below
and feast on my coiled unmaking,

all my visions of belief picked clean,
blood turned to muscle, tendon into dirt.