The Heart of the Woods

At Harmonie State Park, everything green stretches its long restless limbs towards the orange morning sun.

I inch down the backside of Sycamore Ridge. Behind me, the leaves rise up delicately, like the fuzz on the arch of a woman's back after a hot shower. I veer through the belly of the woods until moss mounts the trees and dips its roots into the gray bark.

It's barely April, two weeks before the tiny morel skulls will sidle through the leaves, and the thieves have already come to poach her. The chest of the woods has been ripped open, leaves swept aside into great piles, exposing her heart. They come to steal life but they never leave death, only untidiness.

I climb onto a low hanging branch, sit on her shoulder, and drink my coffee while looking into the sun. Later, I will consider whether or not to straighten her up.