If yesterday I could only with difficulty bring myself to write a ‘nature poem’, irony has it that today I couldn’t stop myself from doing so. Maybe I need to sleep on a topic before it germinates by itself?
Heartbeats
Heartbeats underneath the bark –
Are they mine, sprung through my fingers
Into its parched vines, or are they
Its own claim to sentience?
Anonymous hands have carved
Their swollen fears into the wood –
Does it hurt, to wait like that,
As someone else is marking your body
Without your permission and you,
Tongueless, unvengeful, are left
For dead? Are you tired?
Skin pressed on skin – we are still,
Reaching to each other beyond heartbeats.
