i knew that life/ if anything/ is a snake that crawls with a handful of joy/ & leaves sour traces/ on every parts of your body/ even the skin slashes itself to feel again// & with the footprints getting too heavy to thwart/ you end up hawking them/ coaxing each piece into an empty jar/ of grief/ until it snakes out of you/ too/ just like how the widow/ learning her husband’s face/ on a photograph/ found her body/ lying beside his frame// today/ i’ve learned to take this body/ as a fox/ feigning my wounds with furs–duvets for the reddened sky—only to get caked with aches// on a percussive thundercloud/ i decided to run/ my legs warmed like a python’s scale/ i aimed to jump out of this body/ but only came close to rigged & calcified bones/ trimmed with sonatas that contract only at night/ when another body count// how do i live again?/ maybe taking all the hunting/ (hurting) skill/ my mother taught me/ to butcher half of myself and lease it out to darkness/ to pry on the ruins of my body/ until i master the act of this hood/ & learn how to sharpen my lungs/ with the touch of moist puff…