You search for words like a forager

in unfamiliar woods. Kick aside the strings

of apologies like suspect fungi, too risky

even for a taste. Seize upon the dark

green Lambsquarter, chew past

its mealy wetness for the hardest part,

not the stem but that indicting pronoun

I, hot on the tongue, palpating the heart as

you head for the high ground already

pounded into a worn trail. Leaves flutter

down from the canopy breezes as sentences

erase themselves into foggy strands of

silence. You have vanished again, together

with everything I wanted to say, trapped

by the spines of blackberries, bruised, stained.