The Epiphany of the Animaled Eye

Inside the earth the animaled eye opens. Inside the earth the eye oviposits its cache of extinction – its code of fin & eyestalk, beak & bone, recombinants selecting in the egg’s thick shell. & in the earth it broods. & in the earth it hatches. It hatches, & the oculoblasts emerge, limb by exapting limb.

& they feed. On the carcass of the earth they feed. On soybeans & solvents, pipeline & pesticide. On soft rot & white rot & floodmud & fat. On hookworm & hair. On cities in the desert filling with sand. On those plastic things buried on the outskirts of town. Feeding & watching.

The oculoblasts can see atombone and soilmouth, can see the paw inside the root, the ear in the rock. Can see the filamentous feet, threading through, connecting. & they chew them free.

Through the holes in the earth the oculoblasts watch us. With their compound eye they watch us singling & over. & they count the years to the emergency. When they will shed into their nexting bodies. When their exoskeletons will harden in the humaned air.