Our Woods

Lets go back
into the woods, down
the wooden steps covered
in blackberry vines, past
stumps nursing fresh nettles,
sun spots and huckleberries
dripping from our chins,
sweet as they were sour;
through the foxglove nested
within white grass; we will
stop to sit at the fire pit
underneath the power lines
and above the gas pipeline,
pick over the charred
remains of nights spent
feeling insignificant,
then rise and continue
to the valley, overflowing
with evergreens and fiddlehead
ferns eager to greet us with
some sticky sap or spore on
our way down to the stream
where, in fall and winter,
water runs too wide to place
a foot on either bank;
the path narrows under
a tangle of fragile maples,
then returns to a whisper,
tracing veins in a basin of sand,
punctuated with mossy branches,
where the musk of skunk cabbage
hangs in the air and our footsteps
mark a path till the next rain.
At its heart we built a cabin out of felonies,
wiped our axes on rust-washed jeans,
breathing clouded fear into the trees;
and beyond that, a small town,
a vineyard, and a man-made river.