Railing

Half empty dipping sauces solidify
from the outside in, at their places
scattered throughout the world.
Two finches flirt with each other
with their talons wrapped around
the base of a feeder, and are actually
getting somewhere with all of it.
A depressed zoo giraffe goes about
its normal routine and wraps its tongue
around a kid’s arm that is trying to feed it.
It grosses her out so much she drops the leaf,
and it floats down to the bottom of the enclosure.
Some chances are just fleeting like that.
Later in life she stares down the future that she wants
like it’s a boy in a bar, and she remembers that day
at the zoo, and worries she might have a tendency
to let go early.
Now, when she walks up the long spiral staircase
in the library, the veins bulge out of her hand
while she grips the railing.