CARELESSLY WE HAVE 
ENTANGLED OURSELVES °
Vala THORODDS 

and any unravelling
will be just that—
an unsympathetic tug
and tearing
and tearing
and of course
we know this.

I don’t know how
but somehow
it’s all of this
stuff,
here in this bag,
with all the coins just
lying there
at the bottom, exposed.

I hate change,
but you are easy in a way I never will be,
taking a big sip of water as if it were the source
of your actual
perfect health.

It is your body
that is at your surface,
you lucky dog; you are exhilarated
by the things put here
to sustain you
and if you were an animal,
actually, you would be this horse
we are passing on our way home,
content with the utter simplicity of this grass
and this wind
and soon a firm smoothing with my palm
of all the hairs
on the back of your neck.

I am terrified
that I am the bird
that lands on you for a moment
and when I breathe
you feel my whole body shaking
with the effort of being alive.

I am about you
in circles
obsessed
for that tiny bug
that specific
seed
and you are
meanwhile
just there
capable and magnanimous
drinking the water as if it were the obvious
happiness.

Here it comes now, my
hundredth
sip of air
for your one,

my bones full of it
barely there
but singing
on the inhale

Of course, my horse,
of course.