On the train
from Portland to Whitefish,
the man mistakes
me for Amy,
asks if he can sit
between my body and
the wall and moves
like only caterpillars can.

The women drink
from neon spouts
and shriek what language
does and doesn’t fly
as skeletons of lichen
populate the ridgeline.

In the water, rocks
levitate upon a precipice
of aging, moss speckling
and lining faces,
easing its way between folds
until they shatter,
sliding them from themselves
and sloughing the skin.

The women ask how we’ll know
which ones have burned,
the husks of charcoaled trees
cracking between the wooden teeth
of an unmoved god,
knowing something neither I
nor the women know,
though all of us have burned,
though none of us survive.

I’ve found some peace with the ants.
Some days, I let them live out their paths,
trust they know where they’re going
and so do I, accepting the things I cannot
stop admiring. Some days, all I can do
is carry their bodies out my front door,
still wriggling or rigid,
on the worst days, broken.
Sometimes, I wonder
how we got this close to whole.