What will survive us
has already begun
 
Oak galls
Two termites’ curious
self-perpetuating bodies
 
Letting the light through the gaps
 
They lay out their allegiances
under the roots
of an overturned tree
 
Almost always better
to build than to wreck
 
You can build in a wreck
 
Under the roots
of an overturned tree
 
Consider...

I can remember when I wanted X
more than anything ever—for X fill in
from your own childhood
 
[balloon, pencil lead, trading card, shoelaces, a bow
or not to have to wear a bow]
 
and now I am moved to action, when I am moved,
principally...

Complete in ourselves,
we look like scraps of paper anyway:
left alone, we could tell

our mothers and one another our owners’
flimsiest secrets and play together all day

until we became intertwined, which is why
you try
to keep us permanently apart.

One of us is a...