Halfway

–Paula Mendoza

You were between two animals.
Between two attributions.
At the crotch of a river’s fork.
At a loss, at least.
Between all losses, tendering alms.
By the skin of one’s stolen teeth.
The lethargy of one newly shorn.
To derive, say, attenuate, say
starved to a taper. A porousness.
False asphodel if aphasic, if sticky.
Vaseline-smear a focalization.
Ocean maw and mountain blade
recede. At last, at least—this. A figure
gathers line and edge. She is between
two roars. Who devours or drowns.
Say shore when you mean precipice.
Say split when you mean in pieces.
Redoubled at the jut of some far
becoming. Between, to say the least.
A shade and its absorption. To
swatch a sea’s phonemes, to score
what of light she keeps to let through.