when noise becomes sound--

a poem for you.

the following poem appears in the Summer 2026 Creature Conserve Exhibit Re-Inhabiting Conservation: Using Art to Bring Wildlife Conservation Closer to Home now up at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts.

I LEFT MY HUMAN SKIN

to say quite simply

a single language exists

one beyond meridians

beyond the way I fear

destroying cultures

there is a sound

babies make, before speech

that is speech, mothers

suckling wet, weeping mouths

knowing tears, knowing the dead

remember the peacock who mesmerized

or that scene in The Secret of Roan Inish

where the selkie sheds her sealskin,

in which I felt myself leave my body

or the globed fish eyes

on the other side of the tank

or the lobster I wished to intercept

as they clawed against the silver pot—

stop watching the boys pull limbs off

Daddy Long Legs, saying they will grow

back, stop the hikers from eating scorpions

on a dare, stop me from pouring salt

on the backs of the slugs clung to sidewalk

on a quiet street where no one watched

but my brother, and the still river,

us thinking it was magic to disappear

their hiss was a god’s unknowable whistle

if only to say: careful who you vanish—

a parrot showed up at my doorstep during appetizers

I could do nothing for them, but lay at night on my sofa

we wept together for our trap of domestication

even the sanctuary I found them was netted

I thought of opening the window, looking away

from the hawks circling who had lived their lives free

like every small thing in this world

yearns for, wanting private meadows

wild, untameable freedom

is not only bloodlust, is not only fangs

is not only the harm we do,

but is a swell of togetherness

a child watching a cat’s wet emerald

eyes, and even if there was fear, even

if the animals snapped

there were shared calls

hollers or screams

moans or wails or whoop-de-doos

there was a single moment when

all noises organized into sound.