in the museum I watched birds tessellate
into fish. wings flipped to gills, scales
to feathers. I wanted, too, to shape
shift. standing alone in front of a wall, bare
save the school—no, the flock—of moving
things, I touched my collarbone, I touched
my throat. outside, a cloud touched
another cloud, burst into rain. in tessellation:
the earth, the mud, a warmer planet. move
aside, you who do not yet believe in the scale
or the scope: we’re poisoning our waters, Y said, bare
foot while we cooked our fish to flatter shapes
in the oven, and I thought about all the shape
memory of salt. soft, oblong, seaweed touching
soil or swimmer. somewhere, plants recede, I couldn’t bear
it, an old friend said of the forests, cut to tessellations
under other men’s hands, so he took to scaling
rocks. sliding down them. what use am I? I move
from one exhibit to the other. a museum of moving
pictures, ancient clay, thin wire rods. I catch the shapes
of ghost-limbs and feet behind the glass. for scale,
I squint, press a thumb — the sign reads, Please, do not touch!
so I do. a museum: where history goes to tessellate,
writhe. I ogle at porcelain, shelves of bare
canvas. some days, I don’t want to bear
witness. some days, I want only to move
inside the dirt, shout! mid-tessellation,
I gather all the shapes
my anxiety makes. touch
and go. water and fold. scaling
up, I remember water, I remember wet scales
glinting on the backs of trout. always bare,
the sterile frame of a museum—which will never fit the touch
of running water, never fit the movement
of my palms cupping little leek seeds, shapely
stalks of green I touch & I touch, repeating: breathe, breath, tessellate.