at dusk she bathes 

in writhing pools of shadow 

gathering above tree roots 

like thousands of a black-robed congregation,

soundlessly worshipping sun-bleached spines

on a barren altar 

or crows buffeting graves below 

in dull, overfull murmuration 

 

glowing with light collected from forest floors

stowed away in damp cellars

and sewn into a ragged gown

hanging indecorously from shoulders nearly not-there 

 

she slinks up stoic tree trunks

pining for bony branches 

on high, scraping stars out of hollow heavens 

leaving only a cataracted moon

to blindly surveil below 

 

the precarious climb undergone 

with sharpened talons, 

buried in tree-body

coaxing rivulets of aching sap 

soon coating skeletal hands

as they heave her toward 

gravity’s unknown nemesis