snap

I read an article—

Or was it a study or a meme? About the human need to

anthropomorphize things. 

If we give the car a name,

we never kill it willingly.

But why humanize

a moth’s flutter, 

a bird’s caw,

the sound of deer hooves against pavement

when the moth’s body 

will be embedded 

into the gridded sole of a 

steel-toed boot,

a bird’s wings caught 

in the rusted fence of an 

abandoned school,

a deer’s neck, 

twisted and bent, its legs 

splayed like

garland around a guard rail?

A fixation on the insentient when

we are echoes of dust.

I am more like a mare than

a six-cylinder beast,

and I need you to

kiss me close and cut me wild.

//

photo: adi bracken, 2025, los angeles county arboretum & botanic garden