Michael Mlekoday

I talk to the moths and opossums.

If I were an apostle, I’d take the gift

of tongues and stick it in the dirt,

kneeling, to hear what blooms,

what bides. A family of raccoons

pawed behind my bicycle for blocks,

one night, like they know the city

was made for animal highs.

They led me from behind

like a shepherd with six eyes.

In a town we think belongs to us,

a man phoned the police

when a feral turkey cornered him

against the brick wall of a bank.

Does it matter that it was daylight?

Are there rains that scare

the bejesus out of you when alone?

Do you just overflow with bejesus

like a catchment barrel not big enough

for the new climate’s superstorms?

Once, I was unswarmed with loneliness.

I went back to the wilderness

to learn the names of my cousins.

I never did study the charts,

the hierarchies and removes and all that,

but I breathed the fig-soaked air

and understood enough.

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Michael Mlekoday lives in the Putah Creek watershed of California, teaching classes on hip-hop, Gothic literature, and wilderness poetics. A National Poetry Slam Champion, Mlekoday co-founded Button Publishing and currently serves as Poetry Editor of Ruminate Magazine and Editor of The Lichening (coming soon!). They curate a weekly newsletter of cool poems called Dredge. More information about Mlekoday can be found here.