little_faith raze you gather gold from the garden while the one you love watches the world wake up without you, safe in the arms of what you've inherited from wrynecks and piculets. you're a welcome sight for half-asleep eyes. there's a song i don't know on the radio. a man who shares my last name sings, "oh_me_of_little_faith. can't seem to see my way out of the storm i'm in." he sounds too wholesome to be so blue. i find you again on the other side of the day. i want to ask if the third black squirrel that lives in your tree is your child or a sibling born of necessity. a pair of wild rabbits land on my front lawn. they eat uncut grass and linger long enough to let me film them. an icon flashes red on my camera's touch screen, warning me the battery's almost shot. there's enough of a charge left to get me through this moment. there has to be. i creep as close as i can without scaring them off. a bearded man in a beanie tiptoes beside the curb. he stops at the driveway before mine so he won't sneak into the frame. we exchange smiles. these are hoppy's_children. they look both ways before crossing the street. on the strip of grass that serves as the carpet of your home, they cycle through a series of sprints and feints. these two smaller replicas of their mother leap into living, and something in me stirs. you feel it too. i know you do. you surface and sway to kiss your consort full on the lips. meanwhile, overgrown children poison themselves and scream at fuse-fed explosives their eyes can't find. the woman who lives in the house behind yours digs dandelions from the dirt and drops them in a brown paper bag, colourless but for the blue sundress that hangs from her frame, her back facing a fleet of blushing clouds that melt into the sunset sky. 220523 what's it to you? who go blather from