I emerge from the fortress,
its cocoon of satin bedsheets, 
to take my chances on the forest floor. 
I bear the wounds of an injured creature—
the rabbit bloodied whence the hawk savored 
a bite-shaped souvenir, white fur limping
into the underbrush, or the arrow pierced
in his belly, dangling like earrings in a sagging
lobe, as the deer walks on, stumbles, 
falls—when I, though aching, crawl 
through thistle and thorn, contort the animal 
of my body between the most unsuspected 
passageways: fallen tree trunks, channels 
between rocks of a mountainside, a secret 
tunnel for those small enough to see, 
or in enough danger to invent. Instinct 
embeds perseverance in us all, allows me 
to commit to such suffering, a moving forward 
despite the crimson smears behind me, their scent 
that can be traced, beyond will and desire. 
And when I do carry my limbs, though fatigued, though 
withering, in ways otherwise described as chronically, 
when I am more parts carcass than well-oiled machine, 
I imagine my blood trail sputtering with the freedom 
of a dancer’s skirt, its maroon billowing in winds
that gust in resistance, and when I have strayed
so far from the path that I can no longer see 
a way forward, I look up.

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