Hollow

She cried into the tree hollow.
She felt every bit
the small one of the forest that night.
She wasn't a young deer, though.
She had been out of the herd for a while.
She looked up at the trees:
Thr oaks were creatures
not delighted with her presence.
She wasn't sure why she called
out into the hollow
of a tree of all things.
She'd just thought
that someone would
hear her and wonder at
her cry.
Earlier, she'd gone by the herd
where her father stood: his head high and swung back.
And she'd cried out to him:
It was deep and from
the pit of her.
And he'd pranced off for berries,
disappearing into the light, the way only he could.

Surprise On a City Street

Eighteen hours and you were here.

And they were surprised in the middle of the night,

there was enough light to see:

creation.

They wonder at the construction

of fingernails

and pupils.

It is enough

to withstand

the excrement and the pulling

hard on the bodies.

Grasping for the milk as if he were digging, digging...

Then there is the wide-mouthed-animal-screaming-him.

But…
On this long walk,

he is graffiti,

or loopy messages

discovered

in concrete

when they pause.

Breath

Little ones touch the nativity.
Mary's birthed:
the breath that will move the dirt into place.
No grubby crook of an arm
could stop this.
Salty in our mouths, bloody in our mouths...
A groan.
For a moment,
I can't do it.
But you...
Precious you...