I am
the highway tunnels drilled in your gums
from when your baby teeth plucked themselves out.

I am
the **** rotting on the bed,
whose gelatin you flayed off with your rusted spoon.

I am
the accused with his bounty price
plastered across the billboard sign.

I am
the dying fetus
jutting her head outside the womb.

I am these tributaries — these waves that thirst — which, at first glance, don’t connect. In time, they will prove

that humanity has claimed territory in them.
I am the mouth, drooling forth my mountain water.

This larger lake! I shall never see beyond it.
I am not the fifth dimension, where the sky hangs its hook.

So what?
I have its might. I am the colonizer in its territory,
and I claim it.