i dreamt again

turning to stone; turning
clockwise around

the circumference of a needle

& felt no fear; it would have
shattered against my skin

how days ago i had shattered,

too, & passed the time
becoming elsewhere,

a gutter in paris, perhaps,

or the cretaceous forest,
my body a mouthpiece

for arboreal murmurings.

i could be unwound,
could surround the world

twice (they say,

my blood vessels could be
the waterways of the universe)

but then i found myself again.

flesh & blood, no arching
baleen spine, all fear—no fossil,

no petrification.