the way True’s beaked whales have pockets for their fins
and can tuck them in for efficient movement during diving.
Each speck of cosmic dust has an eye like a tropical cyclone,
distinctive the way snowflakes have their own fragile patterns,
which feel nearly human to those who gravitate
toward tender melting things.
Most everything feels human
to a human. Art is about something the way a cat
is about the house, said Allen Grossman, wise poet
of the personal. His feelings are about us All, the way a street light
in Italy is about a drinking fountain under a tree in Milwaukee.
Nick Cave uses buttons and plastic and faux fur,
says his sculptural work is like a second skin that hides gender, race, class.
All our colors named to explain ourselves to our selves. My feelings—
red in tooth and claw— for this primate in a tiny glass cage
who has been experimented on, are hanging all over
my mind in tufts and blisters the way the fur,
and the skin underneath the fur, is hanging all over
this creature’s body. His penis is raw with open sores.
We see him considering the lens of the camera,
and then the person filming— won’t you help me?
And then more videos pop up on my laptop, more
tortured animals, their horns torn off, their abdomens knifed—
insides pulsing— the storming eyes ceaseless, cochineal.
