headless place

once i went out into the woods
with nothing but my hands.
my lungs were full of burs 
& the night came with thousands 
of shoes. every creature got headless
in the deep & the dark. deer running,
all legs & hooves & guts. heads
elsewhere without wind. i do not know
where mine went. this is a common 
occurrence when i am trying to survive.
i will have to hunt for my head.
this night though, i decided to just
go without it. we have all heard that
chickens can live a minute or so
without their head. this is a myth. 
we can all live much longer.
the guillotine does not work because
of biology but because of other forces
in which i am not well versed. 
somehow we were still hungry though
even without our teeth or our tongues. 
all of us with nowhere to shove
handfuls of shadow berries & holly leaves. 
if i have learned anything
from being always the wildest one
in my family, it is that you can
dismember yourself as much 
as you want, you will still wake up
ravenous for an escape. i like to imagine
the opposite place. the head place
maybe as a museum. rows & rows
of our heads where there is nothing
to do but think. the hunger doing 
her running. grabbing handfuls
& bringing them to a wound. 
when i finally got home with
my head in a paper bag, i sat on the porch
of my apartment building. 
the moon vibrated in the sky,
severed in two like a great broken wafer. 
in the headless place we sang 
though i am not sure how.