dear being

sometimes I chew off my hand
to be a fox 
without options
white bone snagged 
in steel

sometimes I’m the smashed 
teeth 
of a waning moon- 
bear 
the bile-cannula, its sick agony

the perpetual cage

or a panting shark in fin-less 
freefall
dull ingot, ribboning blood
unblinking
sometimes I’m the deep 

embezzled blue

a rhino stunned by the absent 
weight
of a horn
the sudden inimical gravity
her frantic calf

sometimes I cradle the veal-
orphan 
am the crate 
the size of its life
both of us 

so fucking lost