She couldn’t know
it was just a switch back
on the trail, that I’d soon be
passing her yes
with a thick post-hill breath,
couldn’t know the friend in me
hands that slip to under belly
for a soft scratch. Made no sense
to watch her huddle suddenly
beneath blackberry, woven threads
of thorn, tender baby all torn up.
”Sasha come! It’s okay... Sasha come.”
Her owner scrambling for a pocket treat
or a tone, word, finger tucked under collar, a tug,
but like a stone to water Sasha
weighted into a sea of thistle
vertebrae poking through
the stiff arc
her true body, string of pearls
drenched, stricken
as though everything is made of it
the voided song cradled
behind a dancer’s back
her perfect crescent, rib cage bursting
or that one tree on the cape
who, inside, ripples like stone
on water, rings
true as any other flesh and bone tree
calloused roots bent out
of shape, bark gashed
by time or a starved Flicker,
but you don’t see that
winding south up 101
its the arc, every unbraced limb
half emptied of leaf
bent from ocean, bent
so long the trunk had to go with it, the trunk
perhaps petrified, choosing
to fall, choosing
the wind,
slow cambré
coated in salt
in gushing gray sky, out
of the blue, cured
as flesh on ice
it looks so still
so tattered and visible
some part of you goes with it
the struck side
where the song comes in
and blows you out
makes you strange, the whole sky
rips against spine, wood, rib, crawls
cold and black over the moon, the moon
curling away in crescent hold, she feels
it, death, but turns out
to touch back
to rock the water which pulls the wind
after a total collapse of color
beaming every halved and ringing
body, breath held, god you
came in earnest! in pillow, in throat
uncollared, ready for love, pulled
from touch, panting, pissing,
alive! through hemorrhage
through your eyes
in a molten sigh uncurling
to feel
the warm wet truth
of breath over growing as water
patch to skin, submerged
in your whole glistening life,
every hidden fiber
swollen with it—
some people live
half a quiet life bent
over canvas painting those trees.