At first glance they’re autonomous and self-contained,
having nothing to do with each other,
though you’ll note that at times the expression is strained,
as if a bit too much weight bears on the rudder.
And you see what collects in the gutter!
It’s not so much a film as a translucent paste –
a gore on which the rodents are happy to feast.
Thus, they are things that eliminate waste
and so affiliate themselves with every beast.
But it’s not yet been discovered whether they mate
or how they must perpetuate the race,
whether, like us, they thrive in runnels of the late,
and if they have intuitions of time and space.
Some say they’re merely trinkets of the mind –
that they imitate us and are thus of our kind.
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