birds

I did not see the sooty shearwater. Or the shitty sewerwater. To be a writer is to be defined as much by the things you have not done and then thought about than other things. Lived things. To be a dancer means to be in the body as a scientist is in the laboratory. To measure the living in the body. I am a scale and a ruler and a cup or spoon. It has always been about containing and labeling. Small jars. The bird I can measure does not skim crests--I skin its breast. I saw Audobon's large book open to a page I cannot name inside glass. I saw a bible. My hair is silvering.