I slipped out of your life like a snake
on a tree trunk that effervesces slowly
as everything else in the forest a dance
of eat and be eaten, live from what's died.
The courtyard apartment, with the blue carpet,
the wedding plates hung on the wall,
our turtle named Goethe, plank floors in the hall—
someone else's death is inside of it now
but still there's a part of me there
away from the shame and regret of the flesh
inside the heart of it all
looking out calm at forgotten hillsides.
