Brown

I am brown

I am daunting

I am native to this land

and I’ve got the legs to prove it.

I pound the earth with my fists

and it responds hungrily.

I murmur benign incantations in to the pores of a cactus

and it is disarmed.

I compliment a squirrel on its olfactory prowess

and it scurries off to confront the unfriendly ravens.

I embrace a dreary mesquite tree

and press my breasts to its trunk.

I lick the crevices in his fragrant bark skin

and he no longer mourns the fallen friend at his feet.

The dilapidated one

The one laying in pieces,

morbid and awkward.

The one like a dead soldier still reaching up for the sky,

maggots slurping up his eyeballs.

I wish to put him to rest, so I calm his limb

by forcing it down. My weight severs it from his body

and I lay it by his torso.

I snap off a finger,

toss it up like a lucky souvenir,

catching it every time with an upward flick of the wrist,

dancing like a conductor-

an open palm,

full of sound,

a closed fist,

containing all the power for just

one more punch of chord.

The finger crumbles in my hand

and I smear the ashen remains

on my sweaty neck so it makes a muddy trail from

the back of my ear down towards my right breast.

I pull my hair back.

I pull on my backpack straps.

I pull on the door of Juniper Hall.

I pull out a chair.

I wait for class to start.