Iron Hollow
The hollow begins with the cut.
A path wet enough to keep a print.
Trunks like cold iron. Fog with weight.
The last red does not bless the leaves.
It dies between the boles.
Late light dying between black boles.
Rust on the floor. Wet.
The wood has scale before it has a name.
No one in it yet. That is correct.
Standing water. Iron roots.
Leaves going under and staying.
The wood breathes here.
She has not come to the water.
A cloak on the path.
Too far to name. Too still to greet.
The trees decide the distance.
The road takes a print and keeps it.
Bark like metal.
Rust leaves caught in the iron and not let go.
Hand-width from the lens.
No face. The climate does not need one yet.
A fork in the roots. Frost on the fork.
Two ways and no mark of a choice.
The hollow will take whichever print arrives.
She has not chosen.
Back to the road.
Hood up. Copper down the cloak.
The path goes white and does not wait.
She is the interval between two trunks.
The wind takes the hood.
Weather on the face. Rust at the throat.
Breath will show if she stays.
That is all the greeting the hollow gives.
The path has her now.
Wool. Boots. Black leaves.
She is not a figure a room was built for.
She is the distance the trees already knew.
Palm on iron bark.
The wood is wet and does not give.
She listens the way a body listens to cold.
Nothing answers. That is the answer.
Fallen trunk. Same fog.
Cloak open because the walk has slowed.
She sits as if the bole had been waiting.
The hollow does not hurry.
She looks back through the white.
Not fleeing. Not asking the road to open.
The path runs out behind the hair.
The wood keeps both directions.
Breath in the cold.
Shawl to the throat. Late red in the hair.
The mouth does not explain.
Autumn does the talking.
The stream is blacker than the air.
Coat off the shoulders. Wet wool is honest.
Iron roots watch the water take the heat.
She stands in it and does not name the cold.
Spine to the tree.
Dressed. The path still behind her.
The bark holds more of her than the road did.
The wood is closer.
Crouched to frost.
Hands in the leaves. Honest.
The roots remember the fork.
She is choosing with her weight now.
Coat gone.
Shawl. Copper down the back.
The path still holds.
She belongs to the interval.
Thin trunks.
Fog between them like a second weather.
She stands where a body becomes a gap.
The hollow has the scale.
Wet wool.
Late light on the mouth and the hair.
The red that opened the cut is on her now.
It will go into the ground later.
Clearing. Fog holds what the cloth does not.
The dress has slipped because the weather asked.
The trees stay in the frame.
Skin here is still climate.
First mark at the collarbone.
Iron-frost. As if the trees had written
and she had not wiped it off.
The shawl is still architecture.
The wood has not left.
Mid-path. Shawl on.
The hollow has her.
No other book.
The road is the same road.
Near now.
The shawl slipping because the light is thinning.
A branching dark on the shoulder.
The trees wrote. The bark is still in the frame.
Face and throat in fog.
High contrast. Breath.
The wood is still in the hair.
Nothing here was built for a parlor.
Undressed to the weather.
The trunks stay. The leaves stay wet.
If the wood left the frame this would be another pack.
It does not leave.
Marks down the ribs.
Late light, not a room.
A branching dark as if the canopy
had come down onto the body and stayed.
The shawl is the last architecture.
Kneeling in wet leaves.
Hands in the floor of the hollow.
The wool is stained with the same rust as the ground.
Place first. Always place.
Copper against iron bark.
Face half in the trunk.
She goes into the tree
the way late light goes into the ground.
Shawl only.
Seated at the bole. Going smaller.
The walk is not finished.
It is getting quiet enough to finish.
Marked and quiet.
Fog eating the edges.
A small dark at the throat like a last frost.
The hollow does not raise its voice.
The red goes into the ground.
Same path. No face.
What opened the cut is a stain now
and then it is not even that.
She sits as the light fails.
Roots around the wool.
Not only for warmth.
The tree is teaching her how to stay.
Wrapped again.
Taken into the hollow of the trunk.
The face does not ask the dark to lift.
Evening is a smaller walk.
Lying where the leaves are already black.
Roots over her. Eyes open.
The road still runs.
She has stopped using it.
Last standing.
Farther. Darker than the first cloak.
Almost the first path.
The trees decide the distance again.
Cloth and copper on the wet road.
Face gone.
Ember.
She is in it or she is the ground.
The hollow does not keep a crowd.