Different kinds

Let’s measure the size of your cranium,
the way your pupils dilate; the angle
of splay in your toes. Let’s turn you
around on a platform for specimen
portraits that will go into the catalog.
What a puzzle it is to find intricate zig-
zags and dyes woven into your threads.
Is there literature and science in
your caves? Are you able to hold more
than one thought at a time? Great minds
like to sit around the table after dinner,
holding forth on theory and complication
versus the value of making the same
dogged marks in the soil with sticks.
Out on a stroll, let’s pause every now
and then to take in landscape, observe
people; catch fleeting reflections of
ourselves walking past arcade windows.
In the air, various wheeling birds.
In the fields, all the different groups
of animals behaving true to their kind.