Catalogue of North American mammals with drawings and proof plates, c. 1856
Courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
So then he talks to me for a second.
Like a torn check littered across brick.
[Kinda liminal but I like it.]
Splotch on the sidewalk, mucosal,
pallid yellow. The city’s
organ—bowel-like, intestinal.
We deplete the cavities. Like
the splayed arms of a Norway
Maple’s helicopter
seeds. A hydrocolloid gel pad.
Mice can produce
ultrasonic vocalization,
which scientists describe as
“chirping,” a kind of laughter.
[You should steal the hair.]
No I mean the c-h. Kick up
the alley’s dried skin, gravel
chalk, scrape the side of my
rubber shoes. As mice age,
the tendency to chirp declines.
A blister, shorn fresh: two-
dimensional plate, brooding red.