Animal Lover

A horse rises in a balloon
full of writing.

You could ride it yourself
and get no farther than brother,

the animal inside clawing out.
You are an animal

though you seldom achieve
such grace, except in cars.

The animal that directs your dying
Over here! with the wilder cells

bunches in familial nests
very close to I said that.

But birds still fly as birds.
They blue themselves with sky

up-side-down in your iris,
the brain a penguin turning one egg

with its toes in such cold.
When the animals call out:

Human! Human!
you shout back:

I am nude enough.

Copyright © 2009 Terese Svoboda All rights reserved
from Weapons Grade
University of Arkansas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission