21

there's a fleck of orange in the dog's eye, you know this because the animal sleeps and wakes against your body, looks up to see the state of you. these couple days are taut and flowering. the children pull ticks from their necks, pinch-passing them to your squeezed fingers. the children yell murder mystery so you make one. the children don't know the bear walked the ridge to duck into the forest just before they did. the bear and the children walk in different directions. the bear, also a child, has rolled out of winter and into awareness. there's the dart of a deer for your eyes only. there's a conversation of owls at last light. we charge the fire with needles to get the drama shot and the children learn to pretend something is heavy that isn't. we all, unfortunately, know a lot about heaviness between us.
                                    i lay back onto the early grass under branches holding up the moon
                                                              because the earth pulls at me, because the heat of the fire has heft to it, because the air is just cool enough to hover my body so subtly no one else can see it happen. in the morning, all i see is moss and river, where my capacity for feeling is fuzz and roil. the sensory experience called distance is dizzy breathing, body leaping out of body and back again. another circle. a tangle sphere. the river is fast and i am slow, it's a good exchange. the moss is low and i am low, easeful low, crawling along the forest floor in play low. the riversound is down here, too. the children make fairy boats, they pull the schematics from their innate knowing. they shimmer on the water -- the boats, the children. the sphere shimmers, too. now i'm holding up the moon.