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The Voyage of the Beagle

"I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.”
--Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, October 1861

 

Stand next to me and retch over the rail

until our microbiomes sink and merge,

develop shells and pulses, dragging scaled

anemic wonder to the shore. Purge

everything you thought you understood,

the ant, the barnacle, and shout your weakness

to the wind (o stupid dog! o no-good

plodding flesh begetting bile and pique

and paradox). Somewhere, a pointed beak

has learned to relish suffering, to feed

itself on cactus pads and air. A hound

has traveled to the waning moon and back

inside a howl, has nosed the evening’s grief.

It tracks that scent to you, and calls it friend.

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