can’t risk having you fall in
           it’s the same blue blood buzzing everywhere
a spider’s on my face and all I see is dusk
     and lavender cornfields
you would tell me  if (I made your)  birthday a ruin, right?
you’d come out of (your   hole in) the ground,
help me navigate through      pink-spiked weeds?
every step I take close     bullfrog leaping into    moss
to escape me   I get it   I don’t know if it’s my intention
misplaced or if my body’s just unable to execute
       the further I walk from the house a little more it rains
       moths displaced little insects winging away
       each further step I take toward the lake

(originally published in Ginosko Literary Review, Fall 2021)