through the window, a tan quilt drapes 
over a sleeping giant's body. the arc 
 
of a jutting foot, a calf. & another calf,
dribbling milk at its mother's pouch.

were the ladder angled differently, 
the cows could reach the treetops
 
to hide from nomenclature & its maker.
invite, too, the centipede, the sparrow,

the lady with the little machine. 
don’t you see, she says, it's the dice that roll us. 

now it's your turn to not have a turn.

              no, you. 
                           no, you.

we speak in hypotheticals, living in a broken—
cows have four stomachs. cows hunger

for others' hunger to end
the broken tape.

through the fogging pane I see a girl, 
though I am not she. in between the vehicles 

for a provisional future is who I am, hiatus.  
the bus in which I sit is empty because there is nothing

inside. I say this not because I'm nothing 
but because I'm not a thing.