I find the snared fox and cry./Bag the poisoned mole and my heart/makes noise. I lift the shattered shell/from where the body was/and my hands shake. Even for the little Mars rover tilting skyward/in the dust we play Billie Holiday./I’ll be looking at the moon/but I’ll be seeing you. It’s true/I can barely breathe in any of the worlds/we make. Pain/its own layer/in the skin. I grew up reading about starving wolves. Nightingales/driving thorns into their feathered breasts. And me/so much older now than I thought/mistaking myself for the student sobbing after class. I’m sorry/for not talking today. All the stories hit real/hard. But I’ve seen it work/where a thing spreads its ragged wings/beats only the dark veins to fly. A body rearranged/in silk returns with memories of sugar and smoke./Rain shine on pavement/blood shine on fur./Once someone I loved went/without saying. Once something I believed in was a lie./Once it was over and over/it was over./I have been crying like everyone else/my whole life looking for how to last longer/between all this dying/and coming back.