The bones of the old orchard are good.
The winter's bone wind makes me flesh out
the ripe red apples of summer.
Areola on the tit of the mounded breasts of snow
that suffocate babies before they can suckle.
The senses are more memory than real-
smell but touch and taste especially.
I smell the fetid earth of the vigorous meadow.
I touch the trumpet mouthed daffodils that tattle
to everyone that will listen
the Godspell gossip of spring.
I taste cherries and I taste honey
and I drink until drunk the elderflower mead.
We work and feast at love to make our bones strong.
How then did mine become so brittle
like the sapless, dark twigs of song less nests?
I broke the green stem
and drank the milk of dandelions.
I hid my heart in the golden combs of the bees.
I climbed and slept at night in the fork of the oak.
I was more foxy than a fox
more fierce and fast than a weasel
but wolves found me out.
Another lover's tryst, a sharp fanged word.
Neglect and regret and forgetfulness
and dismembering of summer and green corn
when the whole world spooned under a butter moon.
What will they see when they find my bones
buried in this winter orchard.
A caged birds cage
or the chewy toothmarks of a predator
like a scrimshawed scar?