we have learned many things this year about the insect kidney
which is not a true kidney some cacti breathe only at night because
of the quantity of krill they eat the feces of blue whales
is pink desert locusts rarely if ever drink but drinking with you has been

my acutest pleasure when you said it was a day of bumping into
people you meant literally and if anyone were to call the rude
man on the light-rail a retard I would want it to be you because

in February while rafts of photosynthetic algae glowed somewhere
all night and on some pacific forest floor a velvet worm spat glue
on ferns you and I learned that suicide is unforgivable because
the one we won’t forgive is no more and what arcane tasks we can

perform while bleak unwilling in funeral linen even weeping
on the bus we can arrive and recite for an hour all we know of
molecular affinity it’s a lot Michael there is science to be learned
and yes there are friends to strip still-beating from our daily

consciousness but if Rattus norvegicus is capable of meta-thought
we too are capable of many things in the future which may not be
awful may we keep doing them and never say life asked too much