Skin of rats’ alley

Rats’ alley on skin

Skin of deckled leaves

Crumpled in my tarnished palms

As we wipe the city smog’s sweat

Off our labored lips

We remember nothing, but I remember

The dull roots of leveled stumps

In the forest I stood on, in April

And I lie down on dead land and hear the breaking

Of bygone blades under my

Feet—

What a feat

To forget the white bodies naked

And damp on the low, dead land

And watch the emptied sky as if

The branches were swinging their song, falling

In sweet charity, their hands on my beating breast

Above, the city, looks upon the sky

With a bloodshot eye

I see the pacified woods

I am burning

On my knees,

I pick up leaves next to stifled trees

And press them fine within my fist