Totality

My main memory of her
is seen through foggy glasses.
Every time she comes to mind
I have to give myself permission
not to listen.

We all have things we don’t
like to think about usually
rooted in our pain or someone else’s.
I watch a hand slam down
on a knife, the blade sticks out
the back of the palm.

I’ve seen coyotes kill a deer
unable to appreciate the beauty
of it grazing alone in a clearing.
To the them all that is beautiful
comes from tearing it apart.
It is in the stretched fibers
of skin and tendon between
their fangs. The blood.

Or maybe the less romantic version
of that observation would be that
they were hungry. Maybe they can
see the beauty in the things they kill,
but choose to leave the thought
alone.

Somewhere deep in those
woods of theirs where bats
drink the blood of wild foxes,
and frogs croak louder than
ocean waves in the morning.