She took long walks in the botanic gardens in every season so the sunshine, snow, or falling leaves could decorate her story.

She walked through the museum, in the Hall of Pacific Peoples, barefoot where the coolest, darkest displays whisper in the gallery so she could count beads on bracelets and boots. She wondered what it would feel like when Eagle comes to bite her.

She wanted to kneel beside graceful Okapi trapped for his life in the zoo and unwind the path he trod in his boredom and loneliness. She would wear the scent of his hide and the blunt hairs on a black t-shirt.

The Leopard goddess fashioned her a talisman made of hyena jaws, eagle claw, and an eyelash from the ape so she could rattle it beneath the moon and find her path unobscured.

While you were sleeping…