“Tonight I am pulled back into a body crumpled on the pockmarked wood floor, caressed by incessant drafts of cold air. The cold air is clematis vine, tendrils snaking through the cabin, climbing my shoulders, my hips, dipping into my nostrils and ears. It corkscrews so tightly around my fingers, I can no longer feel them. It blooms on my tongue, now too thick to speak.”

—excerpted from “Wildness,” published in High Desert Journal, Issue 28—