That’s the badger people. You know they’re there, 
under your ground, when your feet feel heavy. 
Gravity has a stronger pull. You feel low and wide
and full. Your dreams are weighty. There’s a rock
on your womb. The badger people do not choose 

to move: their dens migrate mysteriously from place 
to place, drawn to ruin. Old mines. Crumbling 
warehouses. The part of your brain that remembers 
names. People who are questioning all they knew. 

As soon as I said it, you knew it was true, didn’t you? 
You have always known the badger people. They 
don’t care for your name, but they never forget you. 
They never say farewell. You’ve seen them in a flash
of fur at the edge of seeing, in the space of forgetting. 
They are older than war. Their dictionaries are filled 

with dirt. Sometimes a hole opens between their home 
and yours into which disappears a sock, your purse, 
your favorite cooking spoon only to later be returned. 
This is not a trick. They want you to scan the ground, 

see a cupboard as a portal. Know objects as both real 
and illusion. In your sleep, the badger people school
you in melted rock and forgotten fire and introduce 
you to ancestors you never knew. They teach 

what honor really means and how to sleep. How to 
slow and walk their pace. How to balance on your bit 
of earth bobbing on the magma beneath your feet. 

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Image: Charles Catton, “The-Badger,” 1788