Your fishes, violet and yellow-gilled,
bob on lengths of green twine in the light.
Bait or catch? I ask.
You cannot answer.

Your air is so very sad,
sadder still these winds, these staggering ponies,
these weak cousins to my moving waters.

It’s like the touch of unbodied souls.

It’s the difference between the oily surge
in your chest and the dish of blood
under the surgeon’s table.

I will never understand your stones.
They seem shucked and stunned,
like they’ve forgotten
how to talk to one another.
They wear the faces
of senile men staring into the sun.

I love your grass, though, the way it tastes
in my arms. Pastoral, you say.