what day drinking’s like, like the sensation

of swimming without goggles in cold

water chlorine burn holding hands, what

listening through a stethoscope is like, oh

glowing second trimester—la luna é più bella—

what startling awaking in the middle-

of-day to the middle-of-nowhere is like

what looking up at Mt. Rushmore is like

what touching an enemy’s face is like

what it was like to play a flute that was 

carved from an ulna found in a bird  

that formed part of an omen in flight (whose

entrails spoke further darker messages) 

in the extravagant petaling of night