best amount of alive

I was in a dream of mine

I was me but not

Anyone I’d ever been

And much too thin

A slip of a thing

So much so

I heard a whisper

Between acquaintances

On the other side of the room

Joking how I got nowhere

To put all the organs

All people need space

To collect within themselves

In order to be their

Best amount of alive

They joked how I must

Have rough stitches

Where one of my kidneys was

Took to put on ice

Stay fresh as flowers

Cut and dropped from a bridge

And in the way the water flows

And in the way the water looks

The blues of the petals

The green of the stems

They spin downstream

Until stuck in the construction

Of a dam I saw

A bird go and pluck from it

Fly behind tree line

Make a nest I want to find

With the amount of steps

It takes for me to tire

Enough to fall

Asleep double 

Because I’m dreaming

Niles Baldwin lives in Southern Maine. He has work in Heavy Feather Review, Burial, BRUISER, Soft Union, and other journals. His first novel will be published by Long Day Press in Fall 2026. It is called Her Favorite Cow.