#wilderwrites

i stayed up late last night listening to the tv by my mom’s glittering forest tapestry while i scrubbed the house’s dishes. it’s what i do at 2am––i’m here for christmas, and i hate to feel i’ve done nothing for the woman who lets me sleep on her couch. that guy who narrates crimes talks about how they found a case of ribs deep in an alabama swamp, wearing the remains of a bra. in all that springtime mud and greens, they couldn’t find the head.

i am in the night sky, calling home. “pick me up,” i say to jupiter. “the kids here are drinking.” jupiter tells me to figure it out on my own. i start walking in the dark and nobody notices me leaving. i see a rabbit on the side of the road––i can't remember which roads to take to get home. the rabbit looks quickly around. it dashes behind me. it dashes into a bush. my phone camera no longer picks it out from the night-blackened leaves. a coyote comes next, eyeing me from the other side of the road. it falls in behind me and looks away when i look back at it. i think he and i could be friends. it breaks off, into the shadow of the bushes beside us. i keep walking. the coyote comes back from the bushes with a rabbit dripping from its jaw. i love it still, but i feel the rabbit’s heart torn open as my own, its dead eye reflecting the moonless night. the coyote eats the rabbit in pieces as we walk together, stopping sometimes to admire the stars from our little quiet road. i love the coyote. it crunches the last of the rabbit––the hind leg of it––and swallows. it looks up at the stars, blood staining its chin. “here, girl,” i say, and bend down. i pull my sleeve over my fingers and rub the coyote’s chin. it looks at me strange. it says, “don’t you think it looks fierce?” i don’t wanna go home to mama jupiter with a murderer, but i don’t tell my coyote that. “doesn’t it feel better without the blood?” she nuzzles me and walks on, pausing a few paces ahead, head turned back slightly. she loves me.

my brother and i walk past an old church that used to be the valley’s library. out front, there are cotton balls of flowers on long, tall stems, looking for god. we are looking for the library, so we walk on. the church bought the space in 1963, and it was because three men felt that the library was in the best part of town for wayward visitors. most people don’t go to the church. the main street has been remade two streets down and runs like a vein through the tall, serious trees in this forest town. nobody knows where the church is. the church was converted into a thrift shop when the church bought the library, and the library is now a tiny shed-like building through a small forest path over the dregs of a watershed, which is dry these days because of the drought. but it’s open. my brother and i walk inside.

kindergarten: i tell my mom and her sister i’m in love from the blurry backseat of the car and they burst out laughing before turning the radio up. when we go to mormor’s that night and everyone plays cards under the yellow dining room light, i sit on the green carpet in the dark tv room, glaring at the black screen, pulling at my teeth ‘til one finally goes loose.

i went to your temple twice and could not sing the words.

he’s playing jazz

I am Hungry, Somewhere, it is closing time and the outside city is green and deep blue with the neon and night. Somewhere, there is a couple in the rust-colored supply closet, the orange tiles under that lime lighting, and they are panting, but not from the work, and they are sweating, but not from the summer. And me––I am a stray cat who clawed the forgotten door until it opened, and I go here each night because there are rats you wouldn’t have heard about on the Yelp reviews. I know what the people do at night. One day, I’ll do it too, but for now, the rats.