I Lived in the Forest

But it was darker.

There was an expanse, an exit—don't pick those flowers
Or strip those trees.

How did my neighbors know?

I chose a path
And a lake appeared.

But it was only the pond.

I was the planet, huge and unable,
Encumbered, pushing forward, a tank,
Continuing, continuous, a beam.

Where the woods began, shade
And a tractor, rusting, abandoned.
We never touched it.
We smoked on a rock. You could only faintly hear a bell.
We were busy in a life of forts.

Inside, I played with cold things.

The closed windows
Showed pieces of yard.

You couldn't see where it ended
And dropped toward chaos, water, darkness.

Beyond that was nothing,
You could fall.
We didn't play there. Land, wall, woods.

I told my father I thought a novel was:
He walked toward the door;
He put his hand
On the knob.

The light came in.
I played by the boiler.
The dark room of books was shut.

These are lost places.

His study was the murder room
in The Erasers.
The light of the lamp
In the black of the glass.

I went down,
The dark, the cans,
And out.

Copyright © 2005 Emmy Hunter All rights reserved
from New Orleans Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission