labeled the “material world,
the abode of man.” Never mind

all the other
gender identities

out there. Never mind the eagles
flying over the ocean where eagle eye

corals dazzle
in all their glorious fluorescence

in the deep below. The raptorial limbs
of the orchid mantis.

Never mind Jesus Christ

lizards gathering momentum
to run across a stream.

The rubber tree and its scarred
trunk. Giant sequoias kiss

the flaming sky. An underwater cypress
forest teems with aquatic life.

The narwhal tests the water’s salinity

with its spiraling tooth.
Never mind the afternoon dance

of the telegraph plant or
the rootlessness of grandpa’s beard.

The sea angel licks the sea
butterfly to death in the abyss.

Emperor penguins in a huddle
on an Antarctic winter night.

Never mind African elephant
allomothers comforting calves

with their trunks.
The bowerbird paints the walls

of the starter house
he built for his mate

with charcoal dust
and spit. Never mind

those dwarf seahorses
as they hide in plain sight

with their prehensile tails
wrapped around gorgonian

hitching posts. They scan
the subtidal neighborhood

with panoramic vision.

Alaskan wood frogs lying immobile
and frozen and very much alive

in the earth. The Earth!
Do pay our home no nevermind.