the kapok tree is shedding, its seeds are open air. but who could want to be
 
 
so vulnerable? that friend the boy whose favorite plant is "breaking rocks"—
 
 
is that to look for what's inside of them? inside the cloth of a person's skin's
 
 
a red weeping undergarment lint flecks cling onto. it's time to step outside
 
 
that cloth now; hang it up. in the measure of its flutter is that dance the blue
 
 
toed bird performs to find another one. a wild thing i imagine wouldn't ritual
 
 
before a mirror how a betta fish flares out: no fin skirt, no blood in water, no
 
 
dark flame, no creature billowing with hunger for an image every dawn until
 
 
it cannot help but leap the glass—& will a person if she leaps her glass in fact
 
 
arrive? safe at the feet of all she saw in there? dry up, exposed?—a rotting
 
 
scrap of night silk on slate tile? to leave the tank, the sanctuary, to bloat out
 
 
into truth from closed pod. right now, today, it isn't glad.