Venus again, impossibly bright in the pink-brushed morning.
Goddess of love smile down upon me now in the dark days of November,
take away the trickle of despair, runoff from the frozen lake of my heart.
Change me into a nuthatch, let me forage and fly, free me from
this primate body: loud, lustful, destructive, put together with joints
that no longer fold or function properly. Dragonfly larvae molt
eighteen times before they even leave the water, and here I sit
with the same skin I've always had, stretched and scrubbed, folding
in on itself, sprouting hair. It's not even that it's too late: it is.
It's not even that we can't save our own children: we can't. It's that
we know we are guilty, that we were too hungry, and no matter how
far we walk on our knees, no matter how perfect our contrition,
there is nothing left to bless us and send us on our way.
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