Juliet Cook
DISSOLUTION AND DECAY
Decayed limbs lurch
themselves out of trees.
Broken branches
spurt dead seeds.
Appendages flutter down
from another cracked nest,
soon to dissolve or disappear
or get trapped underground
and this ground is too hard
for anything stuck beneath
the surface to move forward again.
I thought I had seen a hint
of blue. I momentarily thought
it was a new egg poking its way out
from a tiny gap in the old nest's fabric.
I temporarily imagined a mini forest
growing in all different directions
on all sides of the branches.
Then all the branches collapsed.
All the leaves fell down into ashes.
All the bright colors dissolved
or were covered up by dull brown
and gray. Dying hair and veins.
I closed my eyes and fixated
upon my ripped apart red leaves.
Not primary but marooned.
I visualized a dark sparkle, a splatter
of blood, a mortician's ice pick
hacking into the ground
to resurrect me from my self-created
coffin, cut me out of the ice
and mold and mildew and mud.
Plunge into my heart until
all my blood turns purple.
Hang my aorta on the top of the tree.