B96
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: with Abandon

a long, stray hair,

My own,
stretches itself off of My lap,
reaching into the wind of this foreign country
so I lift it and set it down onto a gust
then watch it soar temporarily
into the most flightfully free moment of its inanimance.

how many hairs and bits of hairs and bits of old skin
have I scattered, and how far?
where have they moved on to now?
do they sit in the splendorous gut
of some unwitting cannibal,
in the heart of some frozen desert,
or deep in the dirt, nurturing a seed growing,
whispering to it, “great things to see! go up; have a look!
stretch out your everything toward that glimpse of color,
toward orange warmth and quenchful downpour.”

have I yet stretched across the planet
with all that I’ve sloughed off?
is that my Purpose here?

Frida Bilson