I was of the trees
Hotly, fully, soot-soaked woman.
Bearing lips and knees
Slow feet sliding across night-cobbled streets
Through silty swamps and constellations;
Starkly naked in the drinking dark.
My blind steps straying off the course,
My lips: not braced for strike,
and saying all of the vulnerable things
To glasses of water, and thieves alike.
A white-hot bud of useless thunder rumpled loudly through me.
I was softly smoldering,
Before I gave birth to me:
I wandered, hips and knees and grace and and map-less, somehow,
Came to this place.
I have so many unwritten letters:
You could pluck me from a winter vine
And intertwine with me.
But if you leave me,
Warmly, fiercely free
I will grow
Into a glowing apple.