2

Sun pleaded wringing its hands and all but I said No my eyes stay shut this morning cause we’re playing a game here’s the rules I’m giving you 90 seconds to hide so you best be somewhere clever when I rise and not behind that Tower of Babel cloud neither cause I’ll know exactly where to find you and you’d have ruined our fun. When it skipped off behind somethingorother I blindhanded my way along the gravel to where you were but all my fingers found was a handful of busted rock schemed in a braille that I could not read.

Sun was anxious for me to finish counting its heart chameleoned to an Ethiopian drum taut and low that osmosised from space through horizon and settlered the cave in my chest. Go get gone I thought Go get gone cause I wanted to find you instead

So I pretended to fall back asleep while counting. I fake twitched (just in case sun was peeking) my arm jutting out & what should have been gravel was suddenly grass & the ground sunk a few inches like when you lay on your back looking up on a trampoline & someone startles you by jumping up & your world shifts the sky buckles. So here I was suddenly on some prairie with my fingers braided through tall grass & sun hiding on the other side of the world thinking Why isn’t she done counting yet?

My camp had all disappeared unless they turned into those trees waving between me & Orion & I found no reason to rise because my mind wouldn’t shut off One of us who would have made a better animal told me that if we lived in the forest there’d be no second thoughts there’d be no ethical systems there’d be no trace of humanity left but I can’t believe this even if we’d been raised there all along a mind is a mind & that’s the nature of the beast so here I am so here I am and what now what now what now?