Hit the Lights

As long as the lights stay on, we’re stuck. You can’t sprout wings or rake me with sudden claws. I can’t turn into a storm-tossed tree or an otter slippery as sin.

In the light, we are smaller than life. Our cries are nothing but failed words & our sighs & gasps might just as well have been emitted by some tired engine.

Light always wants to pin us down, to make nakedness into a mere absence of clothes, a sleight-of-hand devoid of actual magic. It strands us in our separate flesh.

Hit the lights & let’s get out of this walled garden! Let our bodies return to their original habitat. There’s a rusty gate at the end of the path, & the whole dark forest just beyond.