in the long shadow of dawn

my heart
skips and flutters
pebbles across turbulent waves
then sinks
deep deep
landing in a hot pit
of
not exactly despair
but
foreboding,
heightened senses scanning,
nostrils twitching,
scenting predators,
legs
don’t fail me now
I am fight
I am flight
wishing for wings
to spread across the landscape
to shield my own
to fly us into the horizon
but escape is a fairy tale
I tell my children
as we crouch in the shadows
watching wolves
devour
decency

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