SAGE RAVENWOOD

Pulp

A single branch snakes finger spread
           from a heart the shape of an oak door   
Sprawled arm’s length   Twigs split a lone limb   
A force bellows    Storm shoved    
           against the threshold
Appurtenant branches lightning splinter
           in answer    boughs spread wider
Cracks form a winter Maple silhouette 
Wood remembers how to bend wind coaxed
Bramble spire leavings litter the floor
Three fingered break at the stump
Thicket lathes burst through pulp 
Forest forked networks laced entrance 
No wolf howl threads the night
          curdled tormented barks and growls
Rouged dark hair stake clothed in skin
          cracks the door’s tree honed copse
A woman whispers greenwood won’t burn
As a man stomps through 
          her last chaparral of safe undergrowth
Staring out the window to the grove beyond
Wish to be timber    tree trunk solid 
          before chainsaw    when we were
          sun warmed outstretched limbs
Before the door    before man
Anger grew a tree