Strong mammals lie on the dream. All these dead things in the road. Charles Gabel

reaches down to one; he pulls it from the plaster earth and walks. Charles Gabel

carries it under the touchable sky radiant with millions of suns, millions of orbits.

The highway warps and turns under the influence of their gravity. Charles Gabel’s

crooked gait forms the dream’s crooked meter as walking is replaced with unwalking.

Millions of orbits. Walking is replaced with blank cry in search of a city, its careful

glyphs to organize these dead mammals into image. Charles Gabel searches for this

strong mammal’s image to animate it. The pale deer lopes through snow to the

rhythm of breath. The pale deer is a dead thing. Across his shoulders, untouched by