i. pick a chunk
it is part of the poet
you really are looking at.
a gall bladder, a silver hair, a distance between two
moles on the neck.

sometimes you have to cradle it, standing under
the japanese crab apple tree, and wait for your
shadow to
ii. read it aloud.
until you soliloquise will it make sense, you will
find it in your mother tongue to
iii. describe its form.

seek a posthumous examination of the fallen stars.
(they were rearranged, it is your job to
iv. find the weirdness.)

heated Braille lifts territories of meaning, one at a time,
budding premature hills echoing
v. poetic self-reference.
the shepherds have no conclusive synonyms.
they are in no hurry to
vi. find other ambiguities.

plenty of hunters are in labour,
(as if any good ever came of it)
(the modern poet implies there’s more than one gender,
but for the triumphant mind that would be a spoiler),
nothing ever creates—
not matter not states,
only more people to sleep under the stars,
lying in waiting,
while the neighbourhood puppeteers
vii. totalise
their daily finds.

it’s in the words, they always say it’s true.
even the herds understood when they
viii. repeat in a different order —
so why can’t you?