I sit in the middle of the wild
to watch the last of my wilderness
build a shed, take shelter,
carve a canoe from my bones.
Here the quietness does not
compete for my departure.
Lymph nodes that tire from
maternal desire, to ruin me
in the slaughterhouse where I
have gaped without being sewed,
a fashion-show of oddball birth.
I still myself in the wilderness
offered by the shed, Flapping
Tawny-Frogmouths camouflaging
their tendons to trees. Once my
carcass has fed the feral to a calm,
I leave a maple note behind,
vowels on veins.
Yes, you own
the discovery of me.
Everything is as serious
as a frost-bitten illness.
I slip into the thin skin of dawn to
follow suit of the oddball crowd.
Pay taxes, fill the Subaru with gas,
roll my eyes and proceed with being born.
Nicole F. Kimball is an emerging poet and artist from Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work can be found in Atlanta Review, Mom Egg Review, Lit. 202, and elsewhere. A four-time Best of the Net Nominee, her debut work of fiction is forthcoming in print later this year. Nicole loves to spend time with her husband, and Chihuahua named Tinkerbelle.