Who am I to say.

When I was born

My grandmother was there as the delivery nurse. 

She wrote me a birthday card years later - recounting the day, saying “You never made a sound.”.

I’ve gone on holding this in one hand as my private virtue and in the other hand as my heaviest shame.

Last night I dreamt I was a coyote running - fast

With a pack of hounds behind me - baying.

Their voices blind the woods.

They’re as loud as the world would be silent if the sea stood still.

They make all the sound I don’t.

Dogs the same but different

Don’t they know me?

Can I call them off?

Do I howl to my own for help?

I turn - they stop - we all stand panting in the dark - noses to the wind - sweet with fear and family. That’s all there is to smell.

I wake up

Read the news.

Read about other people reading the news

Put it down

Pace around looking for a door.

I don’t feel well. Heard other people are sick too.

Outside the sun is warm, the leaves soft green and I pick violets just to watch them turn my water blue.

It helps.

So I cover my table in flowers and roots and stuff them in jars.

This for her hip - this for his back - the scraps of them all into one jar for my heart or whatever the hell is aching.

I make enough medicine for the whole lot of us

But then wake up again and I put the jars away ashamed.

Who am I to say

What will save you.

I limp around all day kind of leaning like I ate a bad rat or drank from a green pond

Which I probably did

But I can’t place the pain.

Did I step in a trap?

Do I chew my leg off?

I see other people grimacing too

Defending their bodies

I hear my family howling now

I want to help

to tell everyone to stop running

and just follow their noses home.

But when is it ok to wail?