What runs wild

 

When you catch

a stranger’s eye

an invisible string is plucked

and reverberates. Maybe

a smile flutters

across your face and maybe

another secret spells itself out

on your brow.

It’s not just coyness

but coiled potential. You may

(in that second) see

a warning in the quiver

of a lid, the angled cheek,

sudden furrow.

You read each other

not like books

but migrating beasts

drawn by the laws

of nature, pointed

by an inner instrument

unaware of figures

and measurements, propelled

by the arrow of instinct.

 

Because we’ve evolved

you don’t know this

anymore. This chemistry to our brains

is magic. You don’t realize that

like wild deer traversing

unclaimed territory we pick up scents

and pierce through the heart

of every encounter. An eternity

flashes in a look, a brush

of sleeves: the sum

of our jagged parts

solved in an instant.

What animals know in their bones

from the scuffle of sex

to the claw of annihilation

we struggle to translate.

At a loss, we trap

what runs wild:

how futile and bold,

stupid and superior.

For when we meet

we grasp at once less and more, fishing

for the essence forever slipping

from our grasp, running like children

through the darkening fields,

waving our broken nets.