The Poem’s Side

These beasts have three sides,
One like deer or wolf,
An ape, a large cat,

Give or take, and one
Turned in, hid from light,
In their guts, which have

Each whole slews of bugs,
Each crew to its beast
And no two the same,

A mixed-bag of life,
Plus a third side, shared,
Like some of those bugs,

And, like the bugs, both
Hid in home beast and
A crew of its own,

Out in air as well,
But loud and large, fixed
In rocks, clay, or wires.

If you see one beast,
You meet all three, and
If one side fails, all

Sides die, though each will
Seek its own ways out—
Child, touch, sludge, sighs, poem.