Queen of the fallen tree and the gneiss ridden
shore, ruling over an empire of celadon
moss and early spring waters, you stand off
to the west (of me) and i see your breath shift
over your lip and dissipate in loose tendrils against
the evening sun

I catch him staring up at the trees arced over
our heads with a strange boyish grin,
this is sorta what I imagine my life to look like he says
all this **** in the way and then beyond that it's clear.
He wipes his hand across the sky as if to illustrate the
supposed clarity beyond the tangle of branches.  I am startled,
I meet his gaze briefly and nod because
if not a mess or entanglement, what better way to
describe the way I feel than to elude to the bracken
and brushwood ?

Out across a wire fence, deer gather quietly and stand
stock-still as we pass, aloof if not for their big inquiring eyes
watching us smirk and bump shoulders because
we don't know how else to be close (I already tried my tricks).
But he surprises me now and again with his gregariousness
with a determination to get to but an equal pleasure in
idling, in stillness, in gliding across my instep, performing
quick studies on my nails or briefly succumbing to the shadow
beneath my collarbone--

Quite arbitrarily, i ask for his pocket knife
but it's him that carves our initials into the
snarl at my feet, his hood pulled close
around his neck as he sets to work
Bis now with those hands that
have been kilned and slipped
with engobe, I am stirred
stirred
stirred
and
awake
awake
and
afraid.