I carry fifty-seven swollen ticks and a hammer,
my sweaty hand clutching its grip. I carry a grand piano

on my back, sweep the dirty ground with my nose, buckle
from disease, my vertebrae compressing from the force 

of animal-you, mineral-you, your vegetation,
until I nearly crack over your knee like a piece of kindling. 

My delicate biceps flex as I inhale, poised to carry
the dead weight of you across my slender body, 

my balance giving way, the traction of my soles completely
smoothed. I stack the Earth on top of me, one tectonic plate

at a time, while carrying you. I carry our Cenozoic era and its nine
predecessors on my head like a runway model carries 

a stack of hardcover books. We tumble from the weight
of the mammoths, giant sloths, megalodons, mostly 

the humans. I spread the blanket I carry to cushion your fall.
Wrap you in chenille, carry you to the reservoir, and lay you down, 

curled up on a bench near the pristine water, folded like a fetus.
We are carriers. The tormented gene.