Ask

I hide in the family woods and

wait for it.

Brother and Sister,

Ask and Embla come



to the edge.

I was born from driftwood.

I made myself

a thrush—



the song is smoke over the fire now.

Aspens are charred limbs.

They are abstract.

Brother and Sister set this



I hold the veiny leaves

falling blackened to the dirt.

Impress them in my palm they come apart.

The trees contort



from heat, they

groan—the branches scribble furiously and

I am separated

in the burning. Plumes float over.



Now I recover form.

I walk the limbs and am forever forgetting

what was my name

Life or zest or Leaf or Lifprasir







what was my detail-soaked skin—

Not this

the convulsion didn’t save the other

half of things.



What was here

before they came through the unveiled sex of

the sky and left fire

for small things?



Ask and Embla,

Brother and Sister made

a perfect forest.

It is perfect. I remember my limb.