It starts inside the chest. Hiss
zipping from deep in one’s lungs
in search of a way out. Lost
for years in a nylon shell,
mine is the heart who believed
in love as both particle and wave,
who, upon seeing a woman of
a certain age always stood still,
assumed she was my mother.
A silent witness, want never
denies darkness and when
the soul constricts on what it targets,
you have to break its spine,
slap its coil against a tree
until fermented prayers release
snarling in the cool of the grass,
orange shed thrashing
until all ribs are broken.