wilderness codex

some things you can only put into words.

*this poem was also featured on the Queens Library website for National Poetry Month 2015

“wilderness codex”

& then, you notice
the hands lingering
longer
the goodbye
prolonged
the
not knowing
where you’re going but
just wanting to
remain.
near.
slow dancing
in the burned out
crater
of the sun
scraping at
all the things
that drift
away,
crackling
& raw-
sometimes
beasts
need someone to
remind them
they can still
be beautiful.
sometimes
another beast
is the only one
who knows.

show me the hymn
the slipping of the knot
the burning
at the curling edge
of yes.
you make me
want to write something
i can’t express..
a rustling of wing
the flick of an eyelid
hand on a pulse-
my pen
probing
for wildness.
teach me how to
be
again.
lead me through the libraries
in the burn
of blindness
i will be
the fire poem-
i will torch everything,
i will become.

paws
stamped out in
ritual
encircling
it is not
the pen moving
it is
tongue curling
on mouth-corners
breath turning stone
to magma
treetops pinning sky
but knowing
they could never hold it-
tell me what you see in me
again.

wildness is
a look away
in a hall of mirrors
a spark captured
on film
sinuous ripple before
teeth sunk,
the shaking inside
a star.

sometimes
i don’t want
to know myself
anymore.
but you remind me
that each piece is worth
picking apart-
paws in, joint deep
digging like
life depends on it
because
it does.

i will wring all the blood
out of this existence.
scouring
thesaurus
for some other way
to say-
i look at you and
lightning.

the sound of
god’s fingers turning
sand
into wolves.