fruit tree

ink spills in spindle-limbs across the page

lines of black melting into branches

until a tree grows from my tear-stained poetry.

i perch on a limb and spin thin thread-tales

of goose girls and valkyries

until the tree is macramé of my yarns

and tanglings, threaded in a coat 

of many colors, keeps warm

and in the winter still bears fruit- 

i am alone in the world.

i will pedal a swan boat through the seven seas

and wish you were with me, every moment

i wasn’t loving my solitude, which is to say

no moments at all.

i left my half assembled furniture 

and collected my manuscripts

for the journey.

so easy to leave behind all that i knew

but so cold in the hollows where i felt the aloneness

grow, like a fungus / flower / feeling

i look for, under snow, on the beach where i 

rode ashore starving, in the hopes it would fill up 

the empty rib cage. no luck, i’m afraid

of my own shadow, how do i cope

with the infinite reflections of myself

in the hall of mirrors, in the palace of dreams

whispering small hatreds, multiplied by every facet into symphony!

i take control, these towers now

belong to me. i landed here 

and made it my belonging 

(let me out, i miss the ragged fruit tree, o please-

i’ll give up this gilt forever).

.

smash the mirrors, blood in my teeth,

hollow body feathers to the floor 

in ecstatic agony, gnarl-tree sprouts from anointed courtyard

bears fruit, brimming above the tall walls 

mushrooms climb through cracks in stone

thornbramble curls around me, dripping juice-

beetroot red and salted copper;

the forest followed me across the seven seas

even in the winter palace

even at the overcoming madness:

it gave me 

a way out

of the castle

at last.