CONTAINMENT

After deep selfishness

I palpated the dawn 

in the groaning forest,

a fat scrap of shadow shaking in the mist.

I sniffed and hunted through the snow

like a bird 

with a woman buried deep inside it. 

I can’t recall my magpie form, this woman 

fragmented, nor the hunted look about her soul 

whose captive footprints melted 

away the frozen Mississippi. 

In another dream we trudge 

together always

like two yoked eagles.  

The forest deepens.

The light spears us full of quills.  

I entered the trees 

and greed rolled off my shoulders like smoke.

Bound, I took no notice  

of the earthen path

nor my humanity as it shut itself 

to me. That morning the mist

was so tender, I pursued it desperately

to the shore of a great lake

whereupon I licked my skin 

with my rough tongue til it opened up,

bristling blue and grey. A heron 

darted its head down into the water, 

dredging up a single frog

which kicked out at me 

as it was swallowed alive.