night closes in on me

like a mouth over a spoon.

all swallowed up,

i look to the moon.

i can’t believe it

but i do :: so much goes

gladly on without us. swallows

make of me a faithful

mimic :: they loop & tumble

about the lake. my eyes

loop & tumble in return. together

we make a kind of cursive

though the calligraphy

does not require me. neither

did the pilgrimage :: while we press

bodies onto beds, nations of birds

sail in black traffic over

what we’ve sloppily named

a nation. a good moon can make

this visible but even more

i love what unfolds further out

of our reach :: in one of my favorite

videos of earth, a lonely rover

spots whalefall speckle

seabed in sunless feast—

in attendance :: death janitors,

wet revelers; in the scientists’

voices, festive disbelief :: i wonder,

one says of the octopuses,

if this is their last meal 

before they make their way 

over. i sit with the euphemism,

embrace the narrative grace—

that tonight while

i disrobe :: somewhere osedax outfit

whalebone :: hopefully,

i relax :: octopus suckles spent

fat before, perhaps, not dying

but sailing in slimy pageantry

towards some enigmatic

over. name the possibility

world enough for me.