my lids close and your eyes open:
silt-rich and promise-thick,
chocolate pools for wildflowers
if I could only

Girl-Beast wake and wail with me
Pack your wounds with rocks and mud
Let growls rip betwixt your teeth
Be killer, hunter, fighter, thief,

Mar is the sea
but not this sea
not these predictable currents
not these precise, breaking waves.

I have been here before, in this Sandpaper Place, I know these stones by chilling heart
Sometimes they are ragged, slicing my palms, Sometimes smooth,

Forged in fire
small and dark and shaped in coal—
you,
black ash shadow

We’re travelers, you and I,
though our maps are not the same:
yours span mountains, ridges and peaks you can feel; Mine run flat like the plains.

We’re stalled in currents. In irons.
We once dove down sprays of kelp
for snails and sapphires.
Now we’re cross-ways to the wind.

We’re swift in currents.
Down spiny sprays of kelp we dive,
Run hands through leaves to hunt
for snails and sapphires.

Nomad girls are Lost Ones too,
with leaves at foot and crown;
they too seek shelter in the trees,
drink Red and Gold and Brown.