Your arms are crossed tightly at the elbow

skinny arms, skinny elbows, plump intentionality

you won’t do as you’re told

teachers scold

parents berate

tell you what a bad child you are for disobeying

for dirtying your clothes climbing trees

for leaving your homework for the worms

for waking with night terrors and hiding alongside

window full of forlorn glass eyes and stuffed ears

you listen to no one

such is your weft

blood sluiced hands, wet before birth

born unwanted, born incomplete, born with fault

climbing up your chubby legs like late summer fruit

stained sloe, hanging upside down, world

made more sense

reading books in attics with spiders and stuffed badgers

their thick russet fur collecting dust even

as they stood pinned behind glass

you understood

the grief of your grandmother flung out on lawn

at the discovery of suicide at eclipse of dawn

her descent into drink and fags, stain rubbing

churlishly against The Good Book

you never had such permanent guilts

not roving through forest, sandwich tucked

hair unbound and knotted before you started

going feral

away from sound of clay pigeons loosing their

mournful lute, somewhere a woman screams

or was it a fox? Stand straighter when unafraid

escaping glass as you

head into the light, cutting a line through

mustard fields, run with voles and deadly nightshade

to some solace yonder

where girls can disobey and grow

willful in slow sun

when did you ever stop? Wilding

urging to run? Barefoot and sore

life thundering in your chest

escape, a winding tune played in lore.