from Beauty
When I die, I'm going to become an animal.
I’m going to walk with the night like a dark lung inside me, like a lover pressed to my long belly.
Each footstep a question, to which the silent earth answers, each time, yes.
I want to be her: oily hair hooking the needles of the winter, ankles aching in the snow, narrow face nudged by a leaf, breathing.
I want the sleek of her leg, the way it fits in and out of the light.
When I die I want to be animal.
Hunger like a rhythmic question—constantly answered, constantly renewed. Wind like an ocean through the pines, and the movement inch by inch below: nuzzling, deft and urgent.
The hoof and the pinch of an oak leaf between the toes.
The hot presence of the world, and then the darkness. The red sharp bud and the red groove of the tongue.
Colors of scent now thick and brimming, now pale and frayed; now stained dark with blood, now sweet and open—hungry for my hunger. Now. Constantly now.
When I die I will be a deer, nosing the wind, becoming a darkness, and then gone.
* * *
“Come on, shy girl,” he says over his shoulder.
I am moving somehow, but I don’t know how, or what I am. I see the arched strides of his legs over the earth which, in the darkness, looks like water. I see his hands part the wet leaves which, in the moonlight, seem to cry out. His long back protrudes from the night and hurtles forward. His shoulders close like doors. His hair flutters slowly around his head like a fairy tale he doesn’t know about. Nowhere on his body will he allow my desire to cling.
“Can you catch him?” he asks.
I shake my head. I can do nothing.
“Fine. Why did you come, then?” He lifts his fist so abruptly that the owl flurries out of the tree with a noise uncommon to it.
“But,” I say, and the boy looks at me with an unreadable face I can now hardly remember kissing. “Maybe . . . be quieter?”
He says nothing—hands me the glove.
“No,” I say, “I can’t do it.”
He continues to hold out the glove. I take it. I put it on my left hand. The owl is gone, like a fantasy in the darkness. There is only me and the boy. The usual things. The heat. The cold. The heart only a few feet away from mine, with just a little air and flesh between us—the only heart which could wake me from the cage of my dream.
The boy looks at me expectantly, at once asking and retreating. I see that he is also afraid, but even his fear he will not give me. I take a step forward and the owl’s eyes appear, blinking, uninterested in love. I do not want to catch him. I want him to be free.
I raise my fist and, as always, he flies away, leaving me alone.
* * *
I’m going to walk with the night like a dark lung inside me, like a lover pressed to my long belly.
Each footstep a question, to which the silent earth answers, each time, yes.
I want to be her: oily hair hooking the needles of the winter, ankles aching in the snow, narrow face nudged by a leaf, breathing.
I want the sleek of her leg, the way it fits in and out of the light.
When I die I want to be animal.
Hunger like a rhythmic question—constantly answered, constantly renewed. Wind like an ocean through the pines, and the movement inch by inch below: nuzzling, deft and urgent.
The hoof and the pinch of an oak leaf between the toes.
The hot presence of the world, and then the darkness. The red sharp bud and the red groove of the tongue.
Colors of scent now thick and brimming, now pale and frayed; now stained dark with blood, now sweet and open—hungry for my hunger. Now. Constantly now.
When I die I will be a deer, nosing the wind, becoming a darkness, and then gone.
* * *
“Come on, shy girl,” he says over his shoulder.
I am moving somehow, but I don’t know how, or what I am. I see the arched strides of his legs over the earth which, in the darkness, looks like water. I see his hands part the wet leaves which, in the moonlight, seem to cry out. His long back protrudes from the night and hurtles forward. His shoulders close like doors. His hair flutters slowly around his head like a fairy tale he doesn’t know about. Nowhere on his body will he allow my desire to cling.
“Can you catch him?” he asks.
I shake my head. I can do nothing.
“Fine. Why did you come, then?” He lifts his fist so abruptly that the owl flurries out of the tree with a noise uncommon to it.
“But,” I say, and the boy looks at me with an unreadable face I can now hardly remember kissing. “Maybe . . . be quieter?”
He says nothing—hands me the glove.
“No,” I say, “I can’t do it.”
He continues to hold out the glove. I take it. I put it on my left hand. The owl is gone, like a fantasy in the darkness. There is only me and the boy. The usual things. The heat. The cold. The heart only a few feet away from mine, with just a little air and flesh between us—the only heart which could wake me from the cage of my dream.
The boy looks at me expectantly, at once asking and retreating. I see that he is also afraid, but even his fear he will not give me. I take a step forward and the owl’s eyes appear, blinking, uninterested in love. I do not want to catch him. I want him to be free.
I raise my fist and, as always, he flies away, leaving me alone.
* * *
