I come from the slaughterhouse. From the boar-tainted blood stained two car garage  where a skinned pig   hangs by bound hooves her squeals still echoing down the valley.  But I wasn’t stained by blood.  My white flesh remained pure  and I built friendships on oaths   written with crow feather quills 

invisible strings tie us together— strangers, friends, lovers, mothers— oh, to wonder.  we all stumble, twist, and fall, dance, shake, bend, and break, until dawn calls.  laugh and sing, child, step forth, witness— walk this Earth; your presence, yours to keep. 

As the sun sets beams of sun kiss  every molecule of earth  as light fades into the afterglow Slow, soft whispers  are carried by the breeze  the sky is sprayed   with majestic shades of red and orange  I watch the sunset here by the river   being on the seventh cloud

when that boy fell  haloed and serene  snow-down feathers enflamed  in quiet radiance  he stretched his arms and whirled and kissed  the sun  and though his nape prickled  anticipated  the plunge  his bare bronze shoulders  his arching back  drip  cascades of golden wax  for now he is  gloriously alive  falling

Strings of starlight fall lightly  onto tired eyes that gaze in solitude  with only the wind for a companion  whistling gently through the cracked  crimson gold leaves of autumn  that drift quietly  onto frost bitten ground.  In the shadows lay  our bones that are no longer lost  only broken.  Wary

Would I be forgiven  if I lay with my cheek  pressed flat against the bosom  of the grass  sparkling  with last night’s rain that came  in startling sheets  as heavy  as the shame, wrapped  around my heart in threads  woven  out of calculated missteps  Would I awaken  as fresh and