my jaw stretched and menacing,
my teeth so fierce I’d no longer care
about the small and tedious details of how
humans try or don’t to keep one another
alive. I could run on wrath,
eyes incandescent and unignorable.
I could rip apart any soft, thoughtless thing.
I am so tired of manners. I’ve been
manacled too long to caution. This country
is a terrible animal, snuffling foolishly
through gardens, uprooting anything
the farmers have carefully sown. Soon
we’ll have no crops to make it through winter.
Watch me changing. It hurts,
but now there is no way back—
I am elongating, I am sprouting hackles
and claws. I see this beast stand upright,
taller than the horses. I see this beast
throw back its head. We howl and howl.
The animal of this country watches,
then turns back to the sweet, tender roots.
