The forest is a striated band of light, Cloak dark razzing at the root, Oxidized copper at the sunlit top.

A solitary ginkgo stands sentinel At the forest path that begins at The meadow’s edge,

Sloughing its last yellow flames Into a wind-combed air, before Iced jawed frosts make landfall.

Blue broncos whinny in the sky Flouncing their white manes In corrals hatched by airplanes.

And even though it is not That season yet, I feel the Death’s Head hawkmoths' grey shrouds

Opening in the night that Has long since fallen In my veined interiors.

Some cells become dormant if They aren't attached to another cell.

This is called anoikis, Greek for homeless.

Also the word for My severed heart.

Winter strips The non-essential from the face Of the earth.

Each tree becomes an atlas Of dark roads trailing off into the dawn’s foggy sleet.

The hungry eye must Sleep now with the bear Curled in the bole,

The empty heart must Chime in the wind knocking At the door all morning,

And the blue fingers must Clutch and clench the coal brazier As if it was flesh and bone In that time of night sweats*.

* Recalling Thom Gunn's brilliant poem "The Man With Night Sweats", from his eponymous book of poems on the themes of AIDS, death, and love.