salvage by Rachel McKibbens

I have learned to need the body

I spent years trying to rid the world of

have learned to cherish its pale rebel hymn

warped by ghost heat, carried, carried

by all my loyal dead. I have learned

to crawl backward into the wildnerness

to ask, to eat, to steep in your gentleness. 

Let this be where I permit forgiveness

to know your name, to leave our cruelest years

where & how we need them most—

                                                       behind & unlit.