White Crane Dies, then Dances

            GREY — our eyes meet, made of the same biology
and helplessness. We are every shade I have hunched
beneath, every spoonful of rain in soggy tracks I diverted
from. SEE, here?         My nail points into our split earth,
bear claws cleaving the world to let me peer into its guts.
Palms facing the gore of the earth, my eyes to the sky—
            the crane stares back at me in descent.

6,
            My red fishing boots do not care about silence
as they bear down on the lake, cleaving
the mirrored image of her long legs.
Her private gaze dissecting me and my young fingers
perching a wobbly bow string as we apologize
to one another: I cannot wait to leave here,
she tells me; I kill her with a plucked arrow
held together by our tendons tightly coiled. Our
fragments shatter her as she takes flight.
I bring my fingers into the muddy waters,
trekking through the reeds, shoes
slipping off mid-stride, and I rinse my hair in the
red body and tear petals off floating lilies
to put on my tongue until I speak her language:
I want to be part of you, I beg into the lake and
she stays dead.

7,
            I wash my hands and hair again. I wash my hands and hair again. I wash my hands and hair again, fingers plunging into lake soil, swallowed by the mouthful. I wash my hands and hair again. My fingernails cutting my gums, judging the effectiveness of my teeth as I pry her beak open and wash my hands and hair again. Rippling surface. Someone consumes all the lily stems. The lake aids me in plucking her feathers out until we are made of smeared orange berry-bleed and white-flower dusting. Mouthful of dirt traded for one dirty fistful of åkerbär: I want to speak your language, I insist between each bite, I have not forgotten. A word cuts each of my fingertips and I stuff them all into my mouth so what spills out won’t leave me and take root.

8,
I offer my hand to what is left of her / her wing contorts / she yields to my grip,
but our fingers are the same / Spin a little faster, take
unsteady legs, forge new steps,
dredging up more mud / Lily-pads hide her body / I hurl
mine up from within me,
gorgeous yellow bile and
all our feathers / beautiful / the wetlands
lap at my bare feet while
she floats
and pretends / the shallow ripples
are dancing waves are
her sky are /
grazing white clouds / and pretends
we are holding hands, not tearing
each other apart / until she washes ashore and strands
all of my movements
with her. We reluctantly lick this wet, new earth
until the pebbles in our stomachs
become mountains.

Mimesis and the Locker Lure

I am thirteen when my dad asks why
he is buying me a fourth lock.

That boy smiles with teeth that can’t bite
so hands do what the grin can’t: tear open
metal locks guarding school lockers, laughing
with beast-shaped strangers indulging him—

there goes privacy.

                               (a scrapped notebooks full of art; a pack of bubblegum;
                               color coordinated class binders; your beanie with
                               the pompom; your dignity between the lined papers;
                               the dog-eared book bad at keeping watch, no useful
                               guard; a dozen other meek items promised
                               anonymity.)

My secret: unlike him I have long
canines and a right to feast
but at a point I found that the sinew tying
him together is pathetically unprepared for
slaughter, peacefully settled into predation and not
considerate of becoming prey he

must have desperately tried to
cover his worn muzzle with his hands.
Maybe he was empty, too, craving
satisfaction, maybe he was
a salt-licker, marrow-splitter, all
soft gums, trying to fake a maw

but there is nothing you can steal from me
I cannot rip out of you.

March 10, 2024

About the writer

Faye Wikner recently made the leap from Nashville to New Jersey to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing at William Paterson University. If she can talk about bones, oceans, or fire, she will.