girl in the woods
hair wild with twigs
could be eating dirt
or sucking roots
her skin the color of bark

I expect she may have grown
at least in knowledge
living with the leaves  and bones
of trees for so long
trace of her in the ash

trunk sheathed in lichen
branches festive with clumps of moss
a scattering of red leaves like torn ribbons
and in the boughs of the larch
a light snow of reindeer lichen like lace

smell of the woods follows me
from any tree standing close
she is in my breath  my lungs
the sap of her my blood
she breathes me in