Maybe it is time to relinquish
this sweet earth

Captivated by the bright plumage
of atrocity
         we who knew only its fossils
harmless and indistinct

Pockets worn through
by ordinary bounty

our hands melting the vast imagined future
into a languid afternoon of blame

but whose fault? whose?

*

The record will not show
how the body trembled

suddenly aware of its delicacy
facing the armor and the clubs

nor the cast on the foreleg of a hamster

nor the beached whale
rolled by many hands onto a sling

We will leave only tooth & bone
to speak of us

deposited in rough arrangement
unable to move together

or touch

*
There will be no memory of fur or of words

for all its rich patterns
tabby    calico    brindle    merle

having entrusted our voices to magnetic figments

and abandoned the sacrifice & resurrection
of trees

when we leave our softnesses unbequeathed

returning the world to the wondrous
birds