Nude Standing Alone in the Forest: A Study of Place

In this unattached nudity, the certainty

Of her barefeet pressed against the earth-sand-like

Soil under the inner arch, essential pine needle

Beneath the heel, blessed curl of old leaf-must seem

suddenly

Crucial. Completely unverified flesh from the toes up,

Only the bottoms of her feet can guess

Exactly where they are.

Naked for no one, it's obvious that nothing here,

Not the noise of the wood warblers or the quiet

Of the branch-tip spider or the poised stiffness

Of the herb on which it rests, even in the sunlight,

Takes particular notice of a bare breast. The wind

Doesn't linger, moves steadily to its own places

Among the upper leaves of the poplars no matter what it

touches

Of her on its way. And even outlined perfectly in white

Against the background of yaupon hedges, the curve

Of her hip and thigh fitting exactly into their spaces

Before the wild grape, her shoulder, as it should, marking

The crucial arch between dogwood and evening,

It's still evident that her body, unacknowledged,

Doesn't belong. Uncaressed flesh by itself has no place

But anywhere.

Within this uncertain location of her unfound state,

Staring up without a mirror, she can imagine

That she is the sky, as easy and open and accessible,

That her abode, therefore, is heaven.

Or she can believe that she is as undemanding

As the egret disappearing without looking back

Over the far shore of the lake, that her habitation,

Therefore, is wing. Or she can close her eyes and dream

That she is the motion in the perfect bud of hyacinth

Slowly opening its blossom between her legs, petal

By petal to its fullest spread, that the only region

Of her desire, therefore, is fantasy.

Yet even without a map it wouldn't be hard for someone

To find her here like this. It wouldn't be hard

For someone to create the center of her as she creates

The focus of the forest which encircles him.

And from beneath the carefully descending darkness

Of someone else, I know she could rise slowly

Above all places like a soft, uncovered moon passing

Through the thickest branches of the evening as if the trees

Had no existence at all. I know she possesses the power

To change every location of the night, if someone could only

Find her inside his own arms right now and discover

Where it is that this is so.

Structure

48 lines · 5 stanzas