Greenman

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It was this way, in the heart of the forest:

green sea deep and light,

leaves like rippling water,

a steady heartbeat of silence. 

 

It was this way, a mere tickle

an itching of the scalp and suddenly

every movement becomes a rustle

as tufts of hair unfurl

 

 to leaf, a flourish of jade moustache

sprouting and curling from raw, nude

skin. My legs and fingers swollen wood,

ridged and gray as sycamore bark. 

 

It was like this, a panic of birds

sorting through my hair,

animals seeking shelter in knot holes,

joints sealing and sap running like blood.

 

It was like this, precipitous,

life bursting forth in unexpected places,

roots seeking hold and feeding

capillaries, the taste of moss and humus

filling my mouth like song,

 

and not like this, like nothing else at all.

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Published in:

Journal of Speculative Fiction

Pontoon8 Anthology

Margins

Waves anthology

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In Spring

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Leaves burst to lime stars, unfurl to small olive wings,
syncopated by a pheasant’s beat, hard-edged
scat of notes toppling into softness.

The goose sails forth, only three goslings line her wake

survivors of night's thin and boneless shadows.

Above the ruffled pink of quince a kestrel
perfects the art of stationary flight,
still point in spinning wind, hover of wing

in overblown skies dizzy with clouds,

his dive precise and scalpel-sharp. Bodies curl among the ivy,

cinquefoil and red bursts of poppy, plain brown deaths.

In dappled light a headless corpse,

rodent splayed on the lip of garden shed, another, eviscerated

plummeted from thirty feet into moss bouquets,

diacritical marks that teach us to pronounce

what few can speak, syllables of feathered clouds,

hollow trees, deserted nests among the blossoms.

 

 Published in:

Smartish Pace

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