in the winter i am close to myself;

bloodborne & soundproofed as

a murmur beneath a tightening

pillow.

 

hollowed-out tree trunks remind 

me of my childhood and that re-

minds me of mountain-top strip

mining and the verdant hue of its

rivulets, dissecting the valley fill

with warm vein movement. the

layers furrow into each other, in

penance for their dark places and

made-up lives, like possums playing

dead to each other.

 

silence is bought with things you 

don’t want to trade, but that you 

will. i am sequestered amid every 

thing like the mustard seed in the 

field: loam-ridden & hulled. it is so 

nice to breathe thinned air.

 

the forest is bare but the river is 

flinty and a verb, full of silver & 

clean knives. i snap in the moon 

time like green wood like brittle 

tea like clambering in the dark.