Wilderness with Conqueror's Gaze
       

I gave the stone back its fury, slipped a dress around a bird and called it a wife. Alone, a woman can only become so many things, most of them furred. Combed with moss, I tore a seam down me and stuffed half in a chest etched with symbols that meant, I thought, nothing. They were, it turns out, the history of the whole world, curled and gold. The chest was a locket I wore close to my breast. My bird wife warbled and I called it love. My bird wife died and I called it the beginning of a story. If the first myth wasn't murderous, we could've become such a different species of land-bound mammal. Instead, I send horses galloping to capture everything my eyes touch.

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Copyright © 2019 Stephanie Cawley All rights reserved
from West Branch
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission