After Watching Ice Age Three

To live as others do should have been easier,



as easy as falling off the overhang



of a slippery cliff, with help from a log.



My tusks had been holding you up. I am sorry for it.



The most dangerous place in the world



is the world, or becomes the world



after you have to flee into it. Even the cap



of an acorn, or the wind-distributed promise



of a future accord, will do, since all families are



adoptive, or they are failed families, or they are both,



as wind chimes need the wind



to tell what they falsely believe to be “their own story”;



the echoes in that cavern must also do justice



to the last chipmunks on earth. They fell in love,



delighting the birthday party, who saw it all



last year (age median: eight and a half). We hold



their hypothetical findings at a distance



until we realize we are in there too,



in the freezing not-quite-



forever of an artificial-



butter-and-paste-scented theater, where everything rings



and nothing gets picked up, and you have to hunt



your own critters if you want critters, to get out



and then sneak back in with some help from that freaky invention



your sister called “fire.” And that’s why we never came home.