Rotten diagnosis, less destiny than miracle.
Slave to worry, slave to joy, slipping the sapped trunk
on its narrow journey home. Some hybrid gleam
to catch hold of, where faithfulness let go,
having no words to parable the death of an orchard,
the lethal side of love.
Shy as conspiracy, the stages of a laughing
heart, idleness plucked like a string,
and a rising mist to run towards, sensing fear.
Assumption into Heaven was the thing,
a ring of felled trees stamped mapless
in Siberia. Tines prised from their
bone handles and a face, startled under
water, where ice split with a golden groan.
Allowances were made for a self-love
so radical that even death might lose
its bearings, be tricked by paw-prints
leading deep into the woods.