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