Full moon: from the trees, shadows spill
as if blood, that red honey. Venison is sweet
if the kill is calm, I recall. Also, more than one woman
has died with a baby's mouth at her breast.

My skin tenses. It is a border,
my private country safe, contained.
Among a thousand redwoods, a dewy luster
of moss, tunneled, under the feathered waiting
of barred owl. So much wanting,
though no one wants to be other.

There are arcs of darkness, where a deer
or mouse could step away into light,
where someone surely watched, allowed,
the quick collapse of body into death.
All those babies, what did they taste? Everywhere
the ground is layered in little bones.