think of an ant hill
so many bodies with jobs
and no straight lines
think of new york city
viewed birdlike from above
infantescimile, opinionated, important
think of them not as the same
think of buds on backyard elms,
blink and there’s hundreds,
now millions, and you know
it is a myth that you cannot watch
grass grow in real time
real time is not real
we are experiencing all at once
(that’s why it feels so fast)
(that’s why it’s gone so soon)
like shark teeth or those sticky burrs:
always so many more
than you bargained for
think of a heart
web of independent
molecules and monologues
each fiber its own
incision, opinion, spark
like from the first firecracker
on the beach in summer
somewhere far away
and long ago (not really)
where the waves are a trick
mirror, a mirage, not waves
but wave, we named it wrong
one big blanket-creature
rolling and pulsing, magnetic
maybe (or magic?) in its unity
the biggest place there is
our lines and maps fail
to capture it, they sink right through
touch bottom, bury themselves
it’s no wonder there is where
I dream when I dream of death:
it is the only mass, the only one
I do not fear
the composite parts of
Claudia Maurino, ’24