Makers never hide their snaking scars.

Instead, they dress them up, fling
glitter in the cut, string circus lights

across an infant wound. They live
best in process, their insides

displayed or played out loud.
They love to smash

the world into beauty
with whatever’s at hand:

busted car parts, magnolias,
a shot glass full of dust. Watch them

conjure murals from psychedelic sweat,
symphonies from interstellar fuzz.

Makers cultivate imperfection
as righteous mess, saying kiss this or

arrest me now, I will not
be ashamed. They invite us to come along,

not because it’s easy, not
because it’s free, but because

something trapped and humming
inside them dreams of endless flight.

There will be years of reckoning
and that hustle in the dark,

pens scratching hour after hour,
MCs spitting, bodies twisting, voices raised.

Stop and listen for that moment
of creation. You can feel it

in a trailer park far from town
and at the crowded women’s shelter

and from somewhere deep inside
the prison down the road: all of us

inmates, our cells roaring
into flame, lit by newness as it burns.