Bright-hot as a fox, you slip
between bare trees, etch pawprints
into the grass like a track
I could follow if I dared.
I could invite you in, your loping
gait, your whisker mouth, your hot breath
the last thing small creatures feel
before the teeth sink in.
Every forest is a balance
between hunger and surrender.
We’re taught to carry
our ravaged hearts like wicks
to be set alight, to wait
in the fathomless dark
for this.
This is the mouth of longing:
your hunger opens
over me, demanding surrender,
a honeyed tongue
opening inward.
I could belong to you
as much as to myself
but this is a new story:
what I crave most
is my own sating,
to become my own
everything.
Faith Allington is a writer, gardener and lover of mystery parties who resides in Seattle. Her work has recently appeared in various literary journals, including The Fantastic Other, The Quarter(ly), Bowery Gothic and FERAL.
photo by Zdeněk Macháček (via unsplash)
Crow & Cross Keys 