Running through wildflowers II

Ankles turn on the once muddy

tread of deer and horses.

Overhead kites and hawks

hover and swoop.

I run.

Grasses and nettles make

red rivers across my skin.

Sun squeezing between

leaves, leaving marks

like animal print.

I run, I run.

I can hear my breath and

my beating heart; and my legs

feel more like the trunks

of the passing trees

than the lithe stalks

of the flowers,

yet still I run.

I run and taste the air.

I run

I run out of

any place known.

Where flowers shoot

into the sky, scars

against the skin of day