Insomnigothic

Late at night when all the hooves are put away
& animals move, if at all, unshod
or night-eyed in the prayer of hunt
familiar with moon ghosts whispering from limbs, trees

or move unconscious with a regularity
that can not be taught, the rib-cage pulse,
the shucking off of innate terror with a toss
of feather, scale, skin or membrane

-these exquisite external organs breathing
right down to the extremities-
the story left to tell, apart from
all this involuntary action in repose

-or repose in action if an owl
upon an updraft- would appear to be
peaceful, larger than the sum
of the parts of the mistaken photographs

unspooling without narrative & only vaguely threaded
with a self some would go so far as to suggest
ws arbitary, except in the darkest corner everywhere
whole lives have been lived, &, it follows.