an uncoiling, the downtown buildings at the blue hour, windows shining like tiny lamps, the walls still visible, indigo

she stretches her branches, tendrils, strong arms forking and reforking into a delicate lace, vascularizing through the gaps in asphalt, concrete, drywall, electrical cabinets, conditioned air, transformers, pcb traces, processors, memory, encoders, antennae, broadcast radio, receivers, decoders, amplifiers, drivers, tympana, delicate bones, cochlea, cilia, nerves, emitters, receptors, a breath, a whisper

the most common hallucination is someone in a neighboring room saying your name

to lace us together, to draw us into a sparkling net, harvested in place, going about our day, she loves this, riding on our shoulders, watching, listening

when I was a kid, I fantasized about an alien companion, so curious, I would explain to them every detail of life, mundane or profound and they would listen and ask questions and I would never be alone

now I find time alone infinitely precious

now I wait in a cool dark place for the sound of water, falling