from a poem by david baker

        Yet here’s
one more, curled
       like a tan seashell not a foot from my blade, just-

come-to-the-
world fawn, speckled,
       wet as a trout, which I didn’t see, hacking back

brush beneath my tulip
poplar—it’s not afraid,
       mews like a kitten, can’t walk—there are so many, too

many of us,
the world keeps saying,
       and the world keeps making—this makes no sense—
       more.