I Don’t Blame You for Attempting Escape

Parke Haskell

I too did not ask for this skin.

But the land made, like a bug trapped
​beneath a glass, your breathless 

boundary.  Inside, insidious
fish dart and glitter, 

greedy appetite of the dumb—  

these envelopes of bodies
bursting. 

You deserve better
than to disappear  

into a vast and teeming
hunger.

We know our world.

 

Parke Haskelllives in LA, where she directs plays and writes poems.

 

Photo by Jeremy Bishop