The dream provided camels,
their cursive bodies a rope
flung across an autumn field. 
Startled, geese rose in waves, 
abandoning what harvest
missed—corn, hard and sweet
as candy, its gold heavy
with genetic modifications
that the geese (like us) swallow
and transform. Coin upon coin. 
In yoga, camel pose is heart-
opener, hands to heels, body
humped, chest its zenith, 
dark thoughts lifting like geese. 
For a moment my body cradles
a vacancy not unlike a harvested
field as I try to enter endlessness
 and leave the dream, the hay
and sunburnt smell of camels
as they glided—almost swam— 
the gold of their hides matching
 the gold of the chaff-strewn field, 
gold heavy in the geese’s bellies
as they circled overhead. 
                           I unmake my camel
slowly, reversing the curve. 
I should by now be one
with endlessness but think
of camels performing yoga— 
what pose the human pose? 
When they curl into grenades? 
When a leg hooks into the elbow of a gun? 
When they make a paintbrush
or knife of the tongue? 
Camels gone, the geese again draped
their capes across the broken stalks. 
The vanishing heartbeat of their hooves
fills me. Everything, 
everything is what I don’t know.

Amie Whittemore

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