The Thief

In my need (and glut with agency) 
I enter the forest and carry nothing. 
The forest is a soft container
with its own light that darkens 
before the sky—its shadow, 
through which the eye sees
its own border—I pry it open. 
I leave piles of stones. 

A truth: I love each separate clover 
as minor garments suggesting 
an underneath, a sex beyond 
that green veneer where I could be 
held by somebody, a companion
in the marrow. This is the ecstasy 
of unreciprocated desire; why I don’t seek
transcendence or grieve 
this station. In my desire

I have entered the forest and found 
the stream’s ambivalence 
approach disdain. The cedar grove 
at dusk does not blush, turn pink. 
This boulder does not privilege moments. 
It is itself, made. In a dream 

I was light in the shape 
of a body; some reciprocal 
encounter, schoolgirl imaginings 
of emotional or sensual 
transference. Another truth: 
I have destroyed the webs of spiders 
and thought myself large
grasping at the air around the body 
for threads when there were none.