Meg Murray's Wrinkle

Wild Magic

“Immortals and gods aren’t the same. They just live in the same place.” - Tamora Pierce

The mudroom’s humidity,

Legos laid out for later play, and

Lunch felt bountiful, even if spare,

Bountiful in that moment, bountiful

Like the work before the harvest -

Heavy and clean with time and dry heat.

A perpetually rising grass, itchy with stamens,

Exoskeletons clicking,

Moving forward, moving up

While the cicada screams.

The business of it all.

Here, a battlefield of birth and death

Compressed

Into a matter of minutes.

The hawk cries too,

A wolf in the sky and the hose,

It makes mud on children’s feet.

On my palm, a fine layer of dirt

Leavened with air.

Even in the wavering neighborhood’s howl

Meters of asphalt sing quietly

So we can stew in our own sweat,

The sheen verdant and constantly throbbing

The dance

And hum

And mushroom’s telepathy fragrant.

Patio shadows creep toward

The rubber of her tire.

The breath catches in my chest. Sudden.

It is swept away,

Atavistic suffering echoing through synapse offering wisdom

And the cheap ability to withstand.

The morning is spiced in grapefruit.

Songbirds praying to the sentience of rocks.