Califia and the Trespassers

EXCERPT

CALIFIA and the TRESPASSERS
by Quintan Ana Wikswo

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These the gleanings of body from body, stalk and stem, a soft pocket of eagle and owl, claws in the husk of bark and below it my thorax, holding a world with my curl of tongue, with my hand, with all my feathers.

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These trees, these – these the first trees. Three spiders, suspended. A nest of legs, delicate. Their web the skin of this forest, counting our heartbeats in the leaves. A creed. A common skein of skin, a thousand eyes, arachnid, and from within this viscera the spiders whisper to me: we glimpse between the branches. We go to what grows. 

I glimpse what glows. The glitter of gold, of bone. Betrayal. A faun whose fur is wet with weeping. I go between the branches. Leave me here.

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The trespassers say to me: this here is dark. And this, here, is light. But I say to them: no. no. Here, we see. This – here –  is further. And this, here, is deeper.