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
wallflower. 