The Forest

The ground
was the back of a woman’s head.
The needles there,
fine little things, fine little twigs,
spread out hair of my beauty.

Young women are the same as old women,
hair pressed so gently to their heads.

She is sleepy underneath me,
maybe just a head down there, and an ear
moving then going to sleep.

Sleeping ground of dirt,
air of sounds, doing up dreams—
whipping them up in a fury
like running feet.

A bee encircles the canoe of my sleep,
a peaceful bee flies about
my nodding head.

I smell the hair of the earth,
the hair of dead women,
log bones
decomposed.

Leaf, leaf, little
leafs,
leaves in the cemetery,
leaves in my present state
falling make a sound
like a man swimming in the distance,
his head bobbing, his arms curling in
white spray.