Finding Other Uses On Earth

The radio is telling me something I know:

they are killing horseshoe crabs and not

killing them, making more of their telson,

these spiny abs, finding other uses on Earth

for the pistils, for the fins. Their blood is the blue

of milky water, blue as the eyes of cave,

blue from a copper kiss. I smooth the skin

fan-tailing your eyes. Sometimes

black. Cicadas rose or didn’t. You gave up,

tried again. I cut my hair like a man

kicking stones out of a field. Ohio Block

Star. Towel on the grass. You bade me

kneel. The moss was springy. I didn’t mind.

The moon in my palm, green as an accident.

But all this is purposeful: the bite in the

moth wing, valved like a birdmouth; the blood

my child. Sometimes I do the math. I don’t

mind. Long ago I promised a parakeet

that fell against my window in the middle

of a New York City snow, held onto the sill, and before

I could get the other window

open and call to him, Come inside come

I would watch for him my whole life.

I was serious.