How much labour in yanking          the moon one landing
to the next, yard to parking                  lot scrub culvert wood,
nightly rate       of pills per hour    how many threads
of linen go to make up    the cold       worker’s coat?
It is possible to wish        for no power more
than oblivion      a cold runnel       that changes day to day
when you are the only one not sleeping through it,
sipping tea off the beaded          lips of the child who is
the reason we work      to maintain bodies in orbit
the traditional moon        and billionaire junk
soon lights alive trademarks         mirrors held to the sun.
That work is mine        runs through me         like honey
making my limbs   actually hot.        My child wakes up
with shorter hair             as the maples turn
the colour of cough syrup       they can’t speak
too many threads                 caught in their teeth     
‘this is just what it’s like      being a human’
much less teen     I say     the words but they are all new
and forming their identity    they cross and recross
that same gulley      dripping onto marker paper
wanting to obliviate gender     maybe also them  
going from name to name;           too fretful at bedtime
about the animals           the impossibility
of a normal life       making films, going on airplanes
too hot to sleep.      The student explains their absence
as a recent exposure            to massive amounts of carbon dioxide
and yet there’s not enough for Christmas      to slaughter the cows humanely;
turkeys flown in from Brazil       the cold forest border
things we countenance            in our reflection
as sky         light freckled with moss     over the kitchen table.
Behind my chair stands a stranger        says she isn’t thinking
of me at all but I am             still with her in the night, doing
my duty to drag the sun             up onto the ledge so my child
can keep working         on finding a name for life
soon to be forgotten        soon to be lived     and warmed between
the hands of their glittering               skilful drawings
of people with giant eyes      becoming trees     becoming weapons