Wood
The sex of your wild
black knot.
Maple whorl.
Molasses flame
crusting through pores.
Pitted. Weathered.
A brief season
until you hunch
and split, bored,
bow-legged.
Who will build
a house for you,
a chest for your
hardening heart?
Wrung by years
and rope swings,
inhalation
of the finest papercuts,
blooms of smoke.
You waver between
burning and blue—
half buried
in this earth,
half in and out
of hell.
Sentinel who sways
herself to sleep.