Why do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion?
But Charlie, I vary a body:
deforest my face and force
my chest-plates into volcanos.
May I stroke your reasonable beard
in survival? May you and the lads
see me pass saying fit, fit, fittest?
Ach! Charlie! my gametes
rest in their holsters, never
to be unslung, to be
origin, to be stringing
descent. (Selection is choice
and coercion.) The proof of me
is a finch, two finches, eighteen
finches (vampire, vegetarian,
large ground, small ground, mangrove,
grey) known for their marked
profusion of beak form and function.
A charm, a trembling, a trimming.
Oh Charlie, the flock of me settles
the branches of your damned
ineluctable equation,
silencing, twittering... Charlie…!
Please forgive the annotation.
Please favour the preservation.