Dark Forest

                                    …and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

              CALIBAN

I love the way the woods arrange themselves

for my convenience: here’s the stob

I hang my pants on and here

the shrub I nestle my still warm

underwear over, out of each leg hole

a leaf like an almond eye, one black

fly strolling the vent like a big city boardwalk.

And see how my shirt flung up

is the residue of flame,

a long smoke fading in the weeds.

I hear my boots go running,

though they will not go far down that ravine:

they miss my socks, one fist-sized stone

in the toes and thrown.

I’m ready now, dark forest.

Bring on your snakes and bears,

your coyotes singing praises

to my pink and nearly hairless flanks.

Bring on the icy night, the cocktail stars,

the flamboyant, androgynous sun going down.

Let my soles go bloody

through the puncture weeds and shards,

let my legs by slashed by thorns:

I will follow my old compass, slouching

toward the north. I will paint myself

in the mud wallows of elk and make my skin

a new brown thing. Give my eyes to the ravens,

my heart to the ungainly buzzard, its head

gone red over all the earth’s

uncountable cadavers, liberator of the dust.

I bequeath my clothes to the unraveling jays

and I will, if I should survive the night,

rise reborn, my opposable thumbs

surrendered to the palms, to find

in a snowmelt puddle a draught

of the same old wretched light,

seeing as the water stills at last

the man I refuse to be.