Appendages sketched
joint by joint,
penciled limbs
set in motion,
skipping, stretching, rowing,
movements made fluid
with sedimentary segments, and
erased trace lines.
She taught me
how people can seem
whole and stirring
while being
nothing more than
spliced stationary.
She taught me
there’s an art
in animating
our disparate parts—
an art I,
for a short time,
found joy in creating.
But after years
of fierce illustrating,
I now find
feigning motion
quite draining.
pm poetry 