She chased them into the corner,
growing wheat hid her lower legs
which were barefoot
and on tiptoe, ready to move.
Between a hard corner
of wooden fence,
she had them trapped.
The wild things were ravenous.
They growled for her,
to enable, to consent.
Glared with seductive eyes.
Behind this pasture,
surrounding
the farmhouse,
lining the fences,
were woods.
Thick and unpredictable.
This was the view.
These wild things
did not come from the view.
They came from her posture
and her imagination.
They were real.
And right now
she has them tense.
Her hair is down and
messy from the recent exploration.
She had fallen into a forest that
may have been forbidden.
The little cuts, the bruised knees
and sore body
had her curious.
She had found a river. She did not swim
but she took her clothes off and
let the water rise to her shoulders.
The newly stumbled into water
had redefined longing.
She leaves the home
when she pleases now.
But the woods are vaguely familiar,
she has been sleep walking in and out of them for years.
Perhaps awake
Whenever she leaves,
she has to come back.
She has to lighten her belongings
to walk farther out.
She also has to trick, tease, scratch and burry
the wild things.
They are what kept her at a window
watching beauty
rather than struggle with it,
rather than drink it, rather than touch it
and become.
Behind glass she would watch
the creatures roam through her fenced acre.
When she was young
they would come inside
and force other things
and stretch her body
or flatten it. Control it.
But she has brought things back from the woods and
they have caused.
So now she lunges forward, laughing.
They cower against the splintery corner.
She dances forward
with her toes in the mud.
Finding light is complicated
but she has it wrapped into her body, her mouth, her hands.
She moves, smiling, taunting,
wielding it to her desire.
Her quiet side wonders, along with tangled strands of hair
and a sore inner thigh
what this could be,
what it is.
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