For What Would You Kill?1
With a line from Lucille Clifton
There are animals which must eat, deserve to devour, and consequently become killers. While I was Praying Mantis I learned this. Looked in mirrors, stalking food. Packed my own corpse in the back of my jeep, left for lower ground. Eating old versions of sins I’d commit again until I was no longer praying, just desperate. I waded beyond venom pantheons of granite cliffs that once fed me. Though in a new home, I missed the bird refuge that gave me my tempest, that taught how wind carves canyons hollow, I did not miss winters where snow held pillows to my mouth until I choked on glaciers. Full of those ice knives my folded body never felt satisfied. I repeated why am I not feeding, not being fed? over and over. Tried to be less insect, killing off my body like bait. Replaced muscle with metal until even in my own poems, I was confused by what my body was. In new territory hunger was still the very specific weight of hosannas. I was too familiar with what my body looked like begging. Used to being promised that if only I converted to a better hunter I would be full. I ate all I could and still,
