No line divides us from the squirrel washing its face
with its hands, or the bird with a piece of string
in its mouth, or the man walking in sandals in winter.
A dog barks by the stone wall that is crumbling.
The wind’s scouring the leafless tree. It has
no note—no voice, the invisible seed flies
without wings through spaces unseen, from the bat
with its human-like face between its wings
searching for its cave, to the salamander sleeping
in its cage, the wolf pup whimpering nearby.
A germ spills from the hinterlands
onto a man’s hand, the man taking a bite
of the wild meat, meeting some friends at a bar,
dancing, kissing his girlfriend goodnight, as the germ
pulses along in his throat, later in the breath
of the bartender, Uber driver, throat of the student,
and custodian, lungs of the nurse and airline attendant,
child and mother in the melody of rain, harmony of a star,
with the velocity of the wind, all the time humming
its inaudible verse, as it seeks new landscapes
and vistas, cuts through the red tape,
passes through every security and border
in its blindness, hearing no one calling it back.
