Animal Space
       

The bush sings brightly by
the lane, dispersing
its hundred invisible cheeps to the air.
Behind the leaves you can see
the hundred birds hung
through a vast, enveloping network
like the scientist who,
after treatment, gained depth
perception for the first time
and while walking home
from teaching at the university
was amazed by the opening
of the trees which now held
"pockets of space" between the leaves,
and in winter by how she was now
a part of the voluminous
snowfall instead of just watching it
on a movie screen like she'd done
her whole life. The proportions
of animal space grew around her head
so now she could locate her deep
ancestors, as well as those relations
who never were—every one
of earth's species surrounded by a cluster
of impossible monsters. She saw
the real animals dotted
here and there throughout the air,
but fell in love with those hypothetical ones
who perched at their shoulders
like angels or entourages.

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Copyright © 2015 Sarah Rose Nordgren All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission