Haley Wooning

Clatter-Clash

clatter-clash, the geese-like gestures love makes,
I see it all: foolish and mindless as the dauntless
hike of ants up the hill winged down dark by dusk
and some animal hunger

I am no different, I lap like rivers at any full moon-milk,
howling out the hollowing empty black beneath the blank
mirror-blank look; it’s as if I breathe water and dream
with paws, a heart slips against its
own narrow wolfishness and is heard of no more

harbor this season with me, the grub-pale berries fatten
among the moldering leaves where my hands open and
shut like sad, idiot petals; what labor will learn them? I
eat my way out, throat by throat, yet freedom eludes me

when the sun disrobes, it is damnation: we are an albatross
of regret and the little else of leaf-littered glooms, there is no
pit to slouch towards, no shadow to marry
we are all too seen

About the Author

Haley Wooning lives in California. Her first book of verse, Mothmouth, was published by Spuyten Duyvil.