A horse
Leans into the coyote’s attack,
Presses against teeth,
Submits to claws, to
Defer the pain
of Torn flesh, of
Severance.
You, a horse,
Leave your last happiness,
Fly across the Atlantic to the father who
Pounded worthlessness into
Your body, your self.
You drive through the desert,
Kiss the necrose forehead of the brother who
Punched you
and worse
You mourn them, refusing to staunch your traumas.
An octopus
Jets away from a shark,
Distorts skin pigments and patterns,
Mimics shapes and movements of
Other creatures,
it becomes
Another being, escaped.
He, an octopus,
Refashioned and changing,
Hid and rested, to
Regrow tentacles abandoned
in the shark’s mouth.
You choose familiar pain over potential flourishing;
He relinquishes the known, chancing rebirth.
Both injured,
Neither horse nor octopus
Comprehends the severed other.
L. Acadia is a lit professor at National Taiwan University, a dog pillow at home, and otherwise searching Taipei for urban hikes and ghosts. L. has a PhD from Berkeley and creative work published or forthcoming in Autostraddle, Gordon Square Review, Neon Door, Strange Horizons, Sycamore Review. Twitter and Instagram: @acadialogue
