#cloudwomensquarterly

APPROACHING THE LAST SEASON

Time to live with wings.

Tips pierce her skin, she bleeds.

Moon fills the room with primal shining

as dying stars rest on her breasts.

She's half dressed,

head tucked under a pinion.

In a breeze her future

passes through the window.

Flutter of trapped wing beats

in her rib cage.

The hand inside herself

reaches out,

plucks her from the earth,

tosses her into sky.  

First published in the The Bitter Oleander

SHE ENTERS AN INUIT WORLD

She escapes into the wild to get away from people. The animal inside gnaws her ribs to free itself, as the mountain rises off its haunches, and thunder growls in greeting. Ache of bone, marrow of memory, pain cleaves, pulls her into the primal gene pool.

In sleep she dreams of finding eggs in high grass. At midnight the moon devours the mountain raw. The sky holds stars of animal skulls, skeletons of old friends. The savage of her heart wakes. The buck tilts its rack, and she's at his throat.

She lives for flesh off the bone. With only spirits in a soup pot, she wakes each morning hungry.

In the meadow she's on heels and paws, wrapped in pelts, her knapsack stuffed with animal tracks, crouched over old bones, mud, and ash.

Darkness gathers in the grass. The wind blows dust, turns the landscape imaginary, a doe invisible. The sun leaps from the paws of a mountain lion, its warm mouth on her neck. As the cat's grip tightens, she looks up at herself in the sky.

First published in The Bitter Oleander