Maybe I’m entitled
        to every suffering I desire.
                        Who isn’t facing
                a reckoning, thinking
about reparations, lighting white candles
        in the bath on a full moon?

                I’m tempted to censor
        the way I talk about spirituality,
              the way I talk about the science
of warming, the way 
            ascension hurts, weaning
off nicotine. My middle schooler
                        writes “Skateboarding is dope”
                                      then crosses out “dope”
                  to say “very good.”
        Meanwhile, I’ve finally kicked the habit
   of using prison as a metaphor
                for angst. I know nothing
        of the panopticon’s actual eye.
                I know about suburbs,
wings, and fur, how to peer
        into the lagoon of the mind
                for signs. I can Google
        anything: magic, neglect, metamorphic rock.

I could write a mean essay
        about what it feels like to be trapped
                by an overwhelming
                        amount of freedom,
        licking the Mother Wound,
staring down a bighorn sheep
         on a cliffside, headed
           for the Bridge to Nowhere,
                 doing Lion’s Breath
               until purple carrots
        spring from the belly
                    of the riverbed, steward
             of extravagant student loans.

The energy of my crown—I’ll say it—
        vibrates as I find abundance
                in a soulful of geese, a leaf,
                        flabbergasting myself
                with the pleasure of wind chimes.

        The looking glass celebrates
as often as it mourns—
        blue-footed booby,
                black rhino, Javan tiger.
        I still only know how to change
one thing at a time, sitting outside,
        rocking. Imagine: sending
            tendrils down to the molten
                 core of the planet
                       like an anchor. 
                  
        I’m tempted to censor myself
anytime I write “light,” but screw it,
                I’m in training to resist
        the old myths of the male bishops;
I have a good relationship
        with my third eye—It’s really dope.
     
Some mornings I wait outside
        for dawn to strike, doing nothing
    but feeling
        radical, while the terrier     
             from the shelter
                  works on a bone.
        We trot around together,
    sniffing and looking,
                singing little songs. I’m happy,
                             he says to me all the time.

Thank you, I say back, and marvel
        at a few well-kept lilies bouncing out
                from a brick wall.
        I make a note of hope
               wherever it sprouts,
watching another rain bomb
        drench Arizona
                in a matter of seconds.

Nancy Lynée Woo is a 2022 Artists at Work fellow. Previously, she has received fellowships from PEN America, the Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. Nancy is the author of two chapbooks, Bearing the Juice of It All (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Rampant (Sadie Girl Press, 2014). Her first full-length collection I’d Rather Be Lightning is due out March 2023 from GASHER Press. She has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies, including Tupelo Quarterly, The Shore, Radar Poetry, and Stirring. Nancy holds an MFA from Antioch University. Her work is largely inspired by the magic and power of the natural world.