I am a person
and member of society
as decreed by our majestic queen
on my nativity's receipt.

I am a person
and that is a tree
though where its leaves end and I begin
can't be cast in concrete.

I am a person
and so are you
though where your fingers entwine
with mine they fray to filaments and fuse.

We are edgeless electronic soup
our neurons move like croutons
our dreams clot and swirl like cream
you are carrot, I am parsnip
basking under leaves of parsley.

The queen grasps her coronation spoon
from which she sups on callaloo.

or perhaps a bagel
with sesames scattered like stars
or a dry-roast well
shelled with clay
I will not be filled
with nuts or cake
nor love or science
for I am empty
and silent.

And the universe is too
a toroidal void devoid of life
spare our transactions
of nuts for shells
nulled as astronauts
pass the transmit limit

How the sun flashes
on copper pennies splashing
wishes in water.

Up here
saturn's rings
are all but nut shells
far flung from jets
which fly by mars at sunset.

I long for the pure
hydrogen at a star’s heart
to melt the iron
though my thoughts float
with hot gas I forget
we are seeds of the future
funnels of becoming
me and the universe
empty packets
with full stomachs.

Some say it widens quick
as my fingernails grow and
by the time I die the height of me
has been added to its width
so toss me off the ship
slip me past seaweed grasps
and test this hypothesis.

Some say it can fit in Everest
with a mile to spare
while I did not find the time
or, perhaps, care
to feet it’s summit this tick of the Rolex
this pound of pressure applied
per inch of capillary.

But even here
where bathyscaphe meets hydrosphere
where sunlight is cinema
where goblin sharks gobble darkness
an anglerfish pours it's torch
over basecamp wishing
loneliness was an antidote
for altitude sickness.

My how magnanimous magma
makes me miss my mama,
subducted and spewed out
drawn down from cold to heat
and reborn as calamansi cocktails
at a shackbar on the beach.

We found your partial left
upper arm bone near Sandsfoot
in the lower Kimmeridge Clay
and asked the Romans where
that was and their reply came
Duria.

And by the size of it
we think you are eighty-two
feet long, which feels big so
asked the Greeks “what’s big?” and
they thought the Titans
might be.

We call that bit
your deltopectoral crest
or crista as it peaks
where your deltoids meet
your humerus and so you are
our humerocristatus.

You are your arm bone
we found that first and now
we wonder who was the last of you
to wander our Jurassic coast.

A cherry is a berry
and an acorn is a corn
and a butternut squash
is a nut just because
each fruit must find its form.

I’m the fruit of my human mother
born in the form of a man
the stamen seeks a stigma -
and receive a form it can.

Bury me beneath the earth
to prove I’m worthy
with a buttercup of whiskey
to resolve my thirst for melody
or drown it down deep in the undergrowth.

Either way I’ve found my note
my place to rest entirely
or spurt forth proud as any came before
to rot to cider with the floor apples
or blossom like a cherry in spring
become an elderberry
or weeping willow
or dissolve
in a cool glass
on a summer’s day
ice cubes, whiskey
lemonade.

Then break the glass
ask what’s ice
what’s shards
all melts
to sparkles
in the strata.

There’s no doubt in my mind
at least not on display
but who doesn’t have some
photographs and trinkets
sealed in a shoe box
with packing tape.

                                  The odd
strand of blonde hair stuck
to a paper plane, disentangled
bracelet braids, a heartfelt
note used for a page mark,
a postcard of a mountain path
fading into darkness.