by Sunni Brown Wilkinson
On the road that opens
to mountains and snow,
away from the houses cramped
in their quarters like too many socks
in a drawer, the eye of the eye
inside of me opens.
All the years of children
I loved and feared
would kill me.
Not their brightness
or the electric thrill of their skin
next to mine, not even the crying
that pried me from sleep
but the dormancy of a wild
inner life I loved and knew well.
To survive, it left me. I cared then
for other wild things. Now in silence
it’s returning. I turn a corner
to a doe and two fawns. I know you. I too
live like this. The body
and the spirit are a bicycle
you ride carefully
and uphill
and for how long?
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