Through the wood & hell to her,

we pass the deer archaeopteryx-twisted

prairie & fuel in their blood
their sad caravansary

rotting, books of prudish nudes
at the edge of the national forest.

Interment, not internment,
someone corrects someone’s grief.

In the bushmeat diner,
rub the butterfly wing above her eye.

Listen into the empty
skull, say things it never remembered.

Something wants out—savagery, dream.

What raw sentimentality,
evolution. A sort of crush film,

like a friendship: moths & mule deer,
saplings. Gather the dead wild like old tools.

Flower needle staghorn star?

I guess I am my own answer to that