Hysterical Wounds of Wonder*

Something makes a rustle a fox (silently most usually slinks) or a toadlet barely a tadpole fantasy a poet folding a scrap of a poem or dryad shifting her saddle or ancestor spirits coming home late (did someone lose a lens cap) the weight of sketch in a notebook or sound of slowly days getting shorter but wait (!) a little lizard a shiny-stripe slither those tiny hands they even have thumbs. Herptile delights usually draw me in but I learned in my youth that hysterical skinks will cast their writhing tails at the gentlest gesture (maimed and scarred and ever to bear the wounds of my wonder) and earth-loving grows with every footstep lighter.

*Prose poem by Jack Phillips