Carrots amber yellow, potatoes gone emerald, can’t name a gem the color of old lettuce but you want to lay it upon my finger, I am wildness suspended in a heart the size of your thumb. I am chewing through wrists and wires, anything I can get my teeth on, beating the floors with my feet, stretching beyond the shape of the animal you knew but still hidden under a black cloak. Bunny, rabbit, hare, you don’t know the difference, just know pearl pelts and loose fur. A dozen scarves woven from my body, wrap them around the hollow of my own throat. What you call citrine is often amethyst under heat, what is heat but pressure under another name, you want to call everything by another name. Here’s a question: what do you call a rabbit whose horns have pierced its own heart. Stuffed and mounted myself on the wall instead of screaming. Took it like a good girl should. Named myself after the skies over and over, are my eyes starry yet because I’ve been looking up for a long time. Watched the clouds pass me by while you had your way. Named the pieces Aurora, Venus, Cassiopeia, ate them before you could see, practiced the disappearing act on my own. Card tricks, hat tricks, sleight of hand tricks, I’m all mis- and redirection, diversions, dams, dug out burrows when you weren’t looking, smokescreens and smoky quartz, don’t you know I’m meant for magic.

Catscratch. Cat’s tail. Cattail. Lady Ann Lake. Queen Anne’s Lace. All the flowers I never planted. All the showers I never danced in. Rainstorm. New form. Reform. Laws change but the world stays the same. It’s all the same. It’s all a game. Deer park. Green moss in the trees. Light piercing through the leaves. New leaves unfurl on my countertop. Mourning doves nest on the rooftop. Mockingbirds lay eggs in the mourning doves’ nests. I’ve gotten no rest. Sleepless nights. Set the world alight. New birds take flight. Feather. Header. Headwind. Fresh skin. The wounds have hardly closed.