Breath not even 
a dash in the annals 

by that I set my proportions
on the sill of the west window

a succulent adds three rungs
to its potted ladder readying

the climb out of my life
from the printer days in a ream of paper

are all at once down by half
this one is a certificate for feeling

alien to my native age 
which nothing can escape

it’s the condition Friday morning is in 
the good witches who fought with fennel were in

today a potato bug 
is born beneath a cabbage

and I am what I wedge against 
myself to check for leaks

ascending a high percentage
of negative space I find 

it must be the right arc 
my scalp is traveling 

butterflies land like stamps on me
though dogs bark