Some innocuous second, a towering gnat

will appear to cover the land

with its eagle beak of wings bend

ing under weight.

The gnat in all fact is a bullion skyscraper.

Its pumice-scraped toes and shins sink in rock.

It rises on its chitin hooks.

The manufacturer

is humane.

One human inflates one gnat by

carving. The process

is not spiritual, does

not evade joints for wear. They

whirl uncomfortably,

when a gnat occurs to appear,

having all the heat and meld of the finality.

The building triumphs not inch by inch

not square by square or brick by brick

but beg by beg by beg,

begging upward with joints the strings that lift

a standing marionette. An arcology

shines from the sphere,

now bottles a city--

grows or shrinks landish near the top,

becomes shriveled with moss,

gives way.

A bird nesting at the top of an arcology made of human

sweat, architecture, gnat

limbs, wings

compound eyes, brain

can feel the rumble of its inner society

hearted on one ancient possessor of joints

moving. Sometimes the vibration filters up and cracks

just at the right moment,

freeing a nestling.

All other interference is trivial.

Drawn out far enough, everything human is only natural.