I felt the crux flood,
plinths adrift in dirt slurried brine.
I watched the funeral of debris
where the swollen rains struck down
fiddle anointed woodlands.
I heard black bears cast lots
to den in hollow timber shard shacks
as the hungry wind said, yes, here,
I gift you these broken boughs
to build a home in. The wind came
for me too, blowing through my body,
wrecking the very foundation,
graves dug up and stirred for show,
& amid those tremendous clashing gusts,
I wished you never knew me. Knew me
in the biblical sense: came from
my fingers inside & contract
as I came from them inside me.
I lamented at the wind for its harsh
puffs of blunder, storming us toward
ruin. My body crossing that space
& finding its shape with you again,
collapsing in the mud-brush piled high.
I am at the mercy of some things,
more than I will say.