Like a thousand horses running in circles
and the sound of rivers and bees
I am tucked into pockets like a burial of juniper berries—
there are no candlesticks, no lights, no cardinal wings

If you are the animal and I am
the criminal, how would you sleep at night?
I carry diamonds on my backs
you swallow living things whole in desperation,

yet we are never released.

In darkness you tame manes, I catch flies for food,
you carry them into the wilderness.

Let’s say we are both undesirable.
I’d follow you into thorns of bushes,
but stop with the gasp of your            breath.

***

Elena T Tomorowitz is associate editor of the Mississippi Review and graphic designer for Memorious: A Journal of New Verse and Fiction. She has poems appearing inGuernica, Used Furniture Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, ILK, Blue Earth Review, Barn Owl Review, and others. She spends her time between Boise, Idaho and Hattiesburg, Mississippi.