wilder raze i found you prone in the parking lot. i thought you were dead. or dying. broken legs. or a shattered spine. sucking wind to buy yourself time. a closer look poked holes in the awful lie distance built. you were only licking up something sweet that was spilled. i couldn't see how small you were until you straightened your spine. your mother called you home with her eyes. face wet with worry. you ran the other way, too young to understand what she knows too well. the world will break your heart a thousand times before turning muscle to stone and sinew to soup. mine is cracked in places i thought were reinforced to guard against that kind of damage. and still, i long to love the way you live, whatever toll it takes. i'm not as wild as you are now. but i will be. 221020 ... ovenbird It’s birth and death that keep us wild, guarding against a dangerous civility. In the grip of labour a body forgets its manners, forgets what a fork is for, loses all language. When my babies came they showed me my animal heart. And you, who have no babies of your own, let death walk you to the wilderness. You fed your heart to the birds only to have it grow back every night. You think this is a punishment but I know it is a miracle. You meet the world at its most turbulent edge carrying nothing but a generosity so audacious it enrages the gods. And this is where we meet—me still slick with the blood of what I’ve birthed and you holding the bodies of every life you’ve fed and guarded and laid to rest. Your veins are the branches of an untamed forest. My womb opens into the underworld. We meet in the place where birth and death teach us what our lives are for: to rend and tear and crack each other open, exposing every nerve to the air. Courage is running towards all the things that hurt and saying, “this, too, is beautiful.” Show me that it’s true, and I’ll do the same for you. 251218 what's it to you? who go blather from