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We squat to eat
 
our seeds, berries, green leaves
on this brushed-clean patch of ground.   
Groomed wild is my hair, long speckled
braids falling past my shoulders

and stirring my dinner in a paint-brush fashion.

We huddle under branched roofs when it rains. 

Our pelts we stole from carcasses
after the wolves had dug in, ate their fill,
left with licked chins: furred torsos
and feet, soft bed, bone necklace,

dried hide covering leggy skin. 

We climb trees like stairs to perch as birds.

This earth is ours and we are wild, 
pushed back from the weight of world order, 
formed lines, vacant eyes, and slack-jawed smiles,  
choosing to breathe instead.  

We are a tribe and we thrive.