Runaway

I travel in the burned-out shells of old sedans,
braid larkspur and oak leaves in my tangled hair.
I rest in broken chairs fallen from trucks beside the highways,
shelter from rain beneath the rusted roofs of old tobacco barns.
I eat only the color of clear sky and clouds at sunset,
drink only the smell of honeysuckle in roadside hedges.
Don’t be surprised if you wake up and find me licking your roses,
or wrapping the sheet of your house’s shadow around my shoulders.
I won’t be stopping long. I’ll keep moving.
At night I sleep beneath a blanket, not of stars, 
but of the darkness between them.

Claire Hermann lives in a little house in the woods outside the small town of Pittsboro, NC, where she raises funds and tells stories for progressive nonprofits. Her poetry has been published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Earth's Daughters, Southern Women’s Review, dirtcakes, Ceasura, The Wayfarer, Lines + Stars, Earthspeak, Prime Number, and Tidal Basin Review. She has a weakness for cats, farmers markets, and foggy mornings.