Under the bridge, the white morning glories
rest from the work that has circled them in,
that has pinched energy into rest, life
into death, bloom into shell of that bloom.
I run over that bridge, desire like wood
splintering from me and landing in vines.
I hear them whisper about me. I hear
everything whisper about me—the trees,
the grass, the wind. I am known like I never
was inside those walls. I am known unlike
a girl before people, in the hunting
moon, in the time of the wolf’s breath, my life
hidden in reeds titled by the current.
I appear when thorns etch my lines in dust.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 