Meanings Float

You awarded the supernatural
Superfluous wings, while the bestial
Suffered from added or subtracted limbs.

For the truly, beguilingly monstrous,
You imagined those in combinations—
Dragons and sirens, harpies and griffins.

We rather like your more bodiless dreams,
The mists, wraiths, and what can’t even be seen.
Those are the ones that float most like meanings,

The auras and vapors and presences
Pretending to be instantiated
In whatever you can’t substantiate.

We’re in here, in this room, in these words, these lines.
You only know you’re lying by these signs.