My Daughter Creates a Taxonomy of Every Little Thing

Birds or rabbits is not a simple question
but we have to choose, likewise
windows or doors, the moon

or the stars. That’s the game
What’s essential, what belongs to you
more than the other? Letters or numbers

yellow or blue, trees or grass?
It’s a surprise and a relief
to reduce the world as if it’s too much

Because after all it is
I take pinecones over seashells
blue over yellow, bees over

butterflies; now a god of logic
now a god of instinct
You take brush over comb

windows over doors
sky over sea
And when we’re done

halving the beautiful world
you ask me for tea
with sugar and honey

And all the birds
come flying back

Jeffrey Hermann‘s work has appeared in Hobart, Pank Magazine, Juked, Houseguest Magazine, and other publications. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2018 by Juked.