LISA PANEPINTO: i've learned to worship the infinite on a smaller scale

i’ve learned to worship the infinite on a smaller scale

the holiness of my breath
the space i inhabit   
flesh and blood

*
i become each animal
on the side
of the highway

flapping
raven
eyeless
fish
broken
deer
river
blood

*
when a fish
wants to become
the wind
it gives itself
to the hawk

*
a wild red hawk
lives in my
neighborhood

we exist
bathed in clouds
above the brick

*
i cover myself in fallen clouds
and the fur of dead animals
to resurrect the wilderness

*
i see a raven boy getting handcuffed
by six dead policemen in the rain
his perfect wings
rifled thru

are they hurting you kid?
please no

*
where there was river
there is train
where there was our lovemaking
there is rain

*
all the cops
try to draw blood
from wounded deer
and innocence of matted fur

while downriver
baseball fans drink beer
and yell

*
road kill fur brings
miraculous transformations

using rivers for maps
i escape mack trucks

become milkweed

*
see the earth witch pull
a thousand starlings from the unseen

more purple skin of milkweed than me
more starlings than i have ever been

*
kept alive by the light
of medicinal leaves

blanket for the man
who lives under the trees

coins for the beggar
who sleeps beneath the bridge

free rides for the unseen
at the back of the bus

soft dirt caressing me
i kiss the brown river

Lisa Panepinto is the author of two poetry collections, On This Borrowed Bike (Three Rooms Press, 2013) and Island Dreams (Cabildo Press, 2009).  Her writing has appeared in The Accompanist, Maintenant, Pittsburgh City Paper, Planet Drum, and more. She is the poetry editor for Cabildo Quarterly, an online and print literary journal. 

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