Half Life of Dawn

sunrise blankets shadows
blue jays squawk warnings – raptors swoop up
to dive down – talons pierce the backs of grey squirrels
everybody’s gotta eat

control currents – hold center – stay the course
winters first snow, open channels steam

i am my own evidence and reclaim the power
as coattails billow back to the past
front open, air circulates through
clothing thin skinned on its way to being human
being alive
acknowledge that a river has a flow
a direction and just because we are averse to getting wet
doesn’t mean we change the river.

shiver a breath across waves
learn how to hear this voice
learn to be present
in the water

CW: Violence

as though ethnic cleansing was a bearable task in justified culling

they were made to fuck their dead mothers
to lie in open graves motionless
for each twitch, a family…