because you said we should take a walk / i am holding captive / thirteen years at the edge / of fall / the woods riven with the knowledge / of nature / you in that moss green shirt / like a handpicked flower fresh / october & its weeping winds / our trekking poles sinking fire / ants marooned with bite / my tongue holding back / a nest of hornbills its beaks / yolking & gilled / as if to say the sun was setting over / what used to be more trees / a forest now a clearing now overexposed / film unspooling the seconds / the tongue takes to root itself / in apology / meaning venomous & hissing & cross / stitched ribbing a cough / you coughed / to get me to look up / a red squirrel crouched in thicket / betrayed by its tail / your boots muddying the winged silence / then a sudden crash / then a sudden spectacular crash / a stone oak / brought to its knees / the floor inconceivable with myth / the monsoon of / we will get past this / past the fungus teaking from a corner / where the light doesn’t reach / the trunk now a fugitive to roots / like feet tangled up in sheets / of soil / that unrelenting sound of sorry / in every breath & catacomb / you / like wildwood fissure / you like a memory-ghost / you in that burning bush / that carnal taste of / bark.