Gall by Jen Tynes

The animal will lie down with minerals
in its system and be cached like

posies, lung branches all gone sponge
central and yet the silver

snout tremor. The mechanical insistence
of the sieve-heart. The animal will feed its babies

with a forklift, will suffer a frozen pea
to cream. What I said is the animal will lie

down with the red cat’s cradle thread
counts of its body and calculate

its age in off-grid city blocks. Any change
in the animal will make a new name

possible, and that is why hiccups happen
more often in winter, why we cannot speak