dampened wool made so in part from the outside and in part from within

the air a pervasiveness
of tin, aluminum, lithium, and
slate, long ago faded
into our collective
background. we
are each of us
an insoluble crowding
of ghosts; together,
we all compete in our creation
of reality.

you brought
me, my
frenetic lethargy,
into a forest more sky
than leaf. this
dysphoria is not related
to sex, not gender,
no, rather
it is a question of
species. i
looked at the metal
squares tacked into the lobes
of your ears and
wondered at which of
our ghosts were speaking.

the road was re-routed as they
were making a new bed for
an old tumbling of water.
further down the road,
a stacking, an
arching, of stones harvested
a hundred years prior
from the surrounding
fields, still made a bed for
the river.

you might say
you do not feel
at home in this
body. what
is most familiar to
you, this
strangeness.