Category Archives: Fang & Claw

The Soft Prophet (or The Beauty of Utterly Here)


The Cot

Nothing to do but drowse and dream,
when sunlight slants through windows
and the house holds its breath.

You trust the world completely,
gentle beast of earth and hearth.

What is it about your stillness
that makes me pause?
You’ve found the secret:
the holiness of rest,
the revolution of surrender.

Tell me, soft prophet,
what god speaks in your dreams?
What wild wisdom runs
beneath that maroon velvet?

I want to learn
how to give myself to the day
as fully as you do,
how to make an altar
of any quiet corner,
how to believe
I belong exactly here.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Charlie’s Story

Charlie’s Story

Before your hands,
there was echo chamber waiting.
Fluorescent questions.
A thousand eyes looking in,
none staying.

What is time
to the untethered?
A bowl always full,
yet hunger persists.
The scent of elsewhere
on strange shoes.

Then —
my body recognizes salvation
before my mind catches up.
Tail semaphoring joy,
an ancient message:
I know what you are.
I know what I was.

Did you think I couldn’t tell?
Your hands speak the language
of second chances.
I am well-versed in the grammar
of almost-too-late.

Now I dial my happiness
up to eleven,
earthquake-wag my certainty
that miracles wear sneakers,
carry car keys,
know exactly
which chin-scratch undoes
the memory of before.

I am your yes-yes-yes,
your what-took-you-so-long.
Every day I crown you
my choice-maker,
my after-all.


This eager body knows
what it has escaped.
That’s why the leaping.
That’s why the face-kisses.
That’s why everything
is better than bacon
when it comes from your hands.