Your Own Good

How many times have I trapped you
My too-bright animal
My hurtling star
In metal shopping cages
In plastic bucket prisons
Behind white wooden bars.
I've pinned you, strapped you
Buckled
And wrapped you. I've squeezed
You to sleep in iron arms.

How often have I frozen you
With no, with stop, with sit
Though you know yourself
In motion--electric
Rush of limb and dendrite.

Your jagged stack of ragged, bitten
Books repeats its themes: submit.
Domesticate. Wall in. I begin
To agree. Yet when you floated
Next to me that first, best night
I told you: You belong
To you. You can become anything
You are.

I love your yes, your flash
Of eyefire, ruddy cheekflush,
Softspun hairlight, all flickering
When you run and run.
You need to burn.
I want to learn
To contain you
Without extinquishing.