Mutable

Outside, you hear the rushing

Water, but you don’t see it.

Later, behind a window

That blocks the stream’s sound,

You spot it rippling through grass.

If you opened the window

Now, you could see and hear it,

But you don’t. You turn away

To think about the senses,

Yet another battleground

For contesting personhood,

Another category

Of human to be denied

Full humanity, and then,

Of course, to try to fight back.

You are not more completely

Human thanks to the mere fact

Of both seeing and hearing.

You present your own issues,

Anyway, given your shape,

Your fairytale frailty.

Nothing could be more human

Than asserting personhood.

If being a real person

Were an identity safe

To deny among people,

However, you’d deny it.

And with that thought in your skull,

You turn back to the window

And, for pleasure, open it.