Proactive Evolution

I'd be white, weak and blind

The opposite of oxen

Feeling for an exit with

Fingers stiff as branches

Of a tiny bonsai birch

Bark falling off in strips

Leaving nude wood, white

So bright in raw scar-glow

Like a fresco angel, except

Starved and deranged though

And for an exit, trying

Through blindness and time

If I wasn't when I am

But I'm on

I'm on fire

And I'm on

Right now

I'd be drying up, nearly bone

Alone in the lack

Veins slack as empty hose

Hand like a crumpled newborn foal

Stumbling towards a need

Too undefined to feed—

The negative of the silhouette

Of a dock crane backlit at sunset

Gasping for exit through unknown air

If I wasn't when I am

But I'm on

I'm on fire

And I'm on

Right now

Pull back the vines

To reveal a detour sign

Now I'm on

I'm on fire

And I'm on

Right now