she is lost, she is
walking out of the picture

When did it
happen, the slip,
exactly? She took
a turn there, a turn
here, like water’s
winding, through
the unvisited
wood and now
has dropped
into her scare-
scape: heels slowing
as the stretch
thins from home.

For sure, the birch
and beech boles
sheer straight up
still, arrows
to the wide air
and through a shale
of shadows jam-
shine lustres from
the brambles, pine-
cones breathe,
a Chicken of
the Woods looms
warm as torchlight –

yet this plunge
the wind comes
sometimes in
to stir, that’s calving
(unsigned) paths,
folds her into
blindness more
and more – clear
landscape-maps
lie at every border
but inside here
is pure abstraction:
silences and time
in curves, the pulse-
tip leaves, densities
of dark multiply.

One flower,
low-growing,
flecks in
and out,
peripheral.
It wears
the feint
and shiver
of enchanter’s
nightshade
and images
her dread – its
fraying deckle-
edge.