Kirsten Shu-ying Chen​

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Most Animals

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What it must be like

to arrive headfirst

into everything—

 

rooms          conversations

             light. 

The body an afterthought,

 

trailing behind. As in

the performance of dreams, 

at best, an agility of guiltlessness, a sudden 

 

bird careens above the labyrinth

where the nest once was.

It’s hard to say why we’re here.

 

Maybe compassion, revoked, was less 

about our suffering, and meant more

to decipher the nearest signpost—

 

not the end, which has always been

a failure of imagination, but rather, 

the leaving, a much brighter tale—

 

the originals all in wait, lined along the clearing.

The werewolf’s sugary residue.

The moonbeams pouring.

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