A trunk's rigid leather embraces my horizon
and sweeps my eyes beyond. It's bark
filled with valleys of opaque sap
beckoning a caress, to be one, trapped
in a timeless world. Above extrudes solitary
branches of shimmering leaves, still, lifeless.

Grass blades crinkle like foil,
buckling under my lumberous legs
and filling the dead air with brief life.
A flower unknown juts between my toes
with a color of animity and spite,
shifting and warping against my flesh.

Behind me is the brevity of self.
Sounds of key presses and strokes
that are replayed and redrawn,
layer on layer until the familiar
was just some sound; some color,
before becoming dust.

My form shifts like leaves of Autumn,
the same, strange, the same.
Fingers become silver twigs, arms
become careening branches, legs
spreading tin grass, mind
oozing memories for the after.