.               her **** sprinkled spine.
                her blackened fingertips from a day cleaning and smoking in
                the pre-spring heat.
                her knife atop the stump.

memory is the root of mankind’s trouble.

                  lullabies  
                  her mother used to sang,
                  as the fish gasped and to the bone.
                  
wilderness, a strange enchanted girl.
              
            her bioluminescent tent.
            her blackened beans and tortilla-leaves and peelings of cheese.
            her knife to whittle a twig.

her moments grow like gardens left alone to ghost-over.
to sample the city wilderness
& then slip further away into a rearview idea.
new republic.

                  paradise. she’s up that trail there.