The astringent grip and grasp of black walnut hulls in alcohol

like oak, boneset, and cat’s claw, hands that bind and draw tissues and time taut and tight together

everything becomes holdfast to anything that’s true, as the soft palms push us into black earth

breath keeps a need-fire in the calcareous cave of wet worry

until mountain spring plies open the stone to raptor and to sky

infinitesimal below the cloud herd, shelter the breath from hawk shade

and turn your own belly to the talon surgery of what asks you to transform

tear and taste, plied open and winged

onto the turning plume

of ever rising warmth.