“I run towards the woods like a young girl in love”

I run towards the woods like a young girl in love
the ground crisp with frost   my breath
exultant and white
I spent the night before   praying in an empty field
stalks of cotton   reaching towards dark sky
clouded with rain and thunder   I wake
in early dawn   dress drenched   head clanging
with a familiar   ache and there in the forest 
hollow   I see a doe the color of hot
caramel   picking   reverently amongst the mulleins
her eyes soft towards me   her nostrils delicate
sweetly sniffing the moist air   then leapt
   vanished into the forest’s dark green heart
like an answer   I remembered when I was a girl
the first time pa smuggled a buck home
the sulky fire   mother kindled   my brothers
skinning the stolen carcass   its blood staining
everything iridescent how sweet the meat   pa laughing
that’s what comes from living wild
our bellies grieving with unaccustomed delight
even then I longed for us to be wild too
fevered and drunk flowering under the sun
to bend towards nothing but light and god

Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Diode and Poet Lore, among others. She is the author of let the dead in, a full-length collection of poems released by Alan Squire Publishing (2022). She lives online at saidaagostini.com.