The world was big before 
we found the dog dead— 
flat on the grass. Not 
any dog we knew, a 
stray, its face in May 

day light like the cousins’: 
soft eraser white. Its stillness 
got our tongues. Leah grabbed 
a stick; Noam, a stone. 
We knew it would have 

to be moved, but nobody  
touched it. We stood a 
long while staring at it,
air the same as sky. 
Sunshine loosened the animal’s sockets, 

drew its eyeballs in, as 
if there were a universe 
to view on the other 
side. Finally, we ran to 
tell. The distance to the 

door was so much shorter.
                        

Art credit: Elana Wolff


Art credit: Elana Wolff

I thought the illness 
might be what we get for scorning 
well-enough—

a certain sensitivity 
comes along with being sick. 

Now that I am getting used to 
losing 
footing in the world, 
the Libran scales 

are evening—at least in zodiac art, 
where one can render them equal = 
like the sign.  

Our artistry lies
in what we designate.

I’m learning how to paint from the periphery, 
with will. 

A chill 
wind blew in 
with the month 
and hailed a wave—Aquarius, 
the water-bearer, 
looking to his spill. 

If he had a voice
to speak the query in his eyes, 
he might say, 
                    When the judgement’s 

done, 
will we be 
enough to see what’s coming—
                        

I woke up at the end of 2020 
feeling vermischt: blurry-eyed and muddled, 

heavy-legged. Couldn’t get out of bed. 
I lay on my back and gazed at the squiggly  

fissure in the ceiling—a crack that had 
the habit of sometimes looking like a rabbit. 

Crack. Habit. Rabbit. 
I read this somewhere long ago, I try to remember

where and why and how it relates to me ... a test.    

Mice. White. Snow. Icy.
Which word doesn’t fit? 
                               
Horticulture. Metafiction. Hemisphere. Subaltern. 
“Sub,” I tell myself out loud, “means 

cue to take 
my feet down. Off the bed!” 

It’s probably always a wish to turn impairment 
into clarity somehow, heaviness 

to levity, and legs 
 to holding us up.