Scales what would once have been
skin… Feathers what would once
     have been cloth… There that
    claiming heaven raised hell, fraught
         sublimity, exits ever more to
                                                       come…
      A drum's head it was we walked on,
  beats parsed out by ghost feet,
    protoghost feet our feet had
become. It was a dream of beaten
                                                      earth,
 beaten air, beaked extravagance,
    birds we'd eventually be. Albeit
  feeling took flight's place, flight
      familiarity's run, movement found our
   feet, what once had been wood…
                                                        We
        stood as one, stung wood's revival,
  "Pinocchio" was on the box. Puppet
      run, strung wood, stump trumpet…
    Bugled admonition. Spun… It wasn't
                                                                swirl
 we wandered into, circling wind we
    considered moot, a way we had of
running in place… Phantom limbs they
      were we ran on, ghost feet that
  they were. Nubs that'd once been feet
    lost their numbness. Feeling it was
                                                            made
us run… It was feeling's return we
    ran with, irredentist earth beneath
  our feet felt good. Irredentist earth
     fell away from our feet as we kept
    running, ran from day one long before
                                                                  day
  one, protoghost entourage… Leg anthem
    the music intimated. "Spooks" it now
was on the box. We were anything but
  there though not elsewhere, rhythmically
     elect but loosed even so, earth a
                                                      dream
    of drums come
  true

       It wasn't puppets we were, strings
tied to what had been wood notwithstanding,
      wasn't we were wood anymore. Runaway
   earth abrupt cut from under… Ricochet
          and Reach rival names we knew it
                                                                 by…
       Blinked and before we got there were
   gone, protoghosthood its own haunt…
     So that Run it seemed it was we came to
 next, a place, had it been a place, made
                                                               of
   whisk, borne-away whatsee, blur… Blent
        vista such that splinters reared up
     and walked, went remitless… Endless
         reconnoiter, endless vex, revisitation.
       Endless hoist and hoofbeat limbed on
                                                                    high…
               Comings and goings not gotten over.
         Death not gotten over, goings away
           glimpsed again had us gone without
       going,         on to the heard-about
                                                             City,