“Killing moon and a spade in my fist. I tell myself, be an open span of turned earth, a furrow untapped by roots. Better to tell the truth that comes when called, like blood becomes a lake beneath the skin. All the concrete talk I’ve practiced, false; the howl will always twist past teeth– eager essential. No consonants rise in my chest. Only stretched vowels that mean sinning.
Better to believe in a sprawling loneliness, like a gutted city or a river fat and falling over damside. Better open up and say, I am no better than a long and pealing scream. Jagged, how I crumpled under the August sky hot with night birds, trilling.
When I deny that I’m wild a once green part of me goes gray. Little bones, white crumbled shells. Little stones skipped across water, only I can feel their ripples in my lungs. Who told me to hide from the fierce spaces that built me?
Instinct won’t die by a bullet. Won’t burn, bury tame, or thrill, or kill its young for food.”