A cento1
I tried to think of you
as fruit, growing,
so many blue-winged coats,
a light show, a million tiny jellyfish,
orchestral womb.
I was merely a ghosting.
My real body wearing
a wicker dress, skeleton pushed
against skin, six sisters
in frocks of gossamer and chiffon moss.
Imagine living the body –
pine needles scratch
the back of her neck, an arrow
of light through the beeches.
Remember crawling through the bracken?
She shapeshifts from a bare tree
to a wolf moon to forget
the weight of the body.
The fox may cry out
at this new scent – the rooks,
the reticulata, snowdrops and the croci
are out & she thinks
maybe I have fallen.
Sometimes I go back
to watch it happen again,
slip inside the body
of the woodcutter.
For you I undress
down to the sheaths of my nerves.
The word I hear most
now is blood.
