mutagen

This poem won Editor's Dad's Choice in 2-Day Poem Contest 2016

the first night of the first time she is sold,

 

she imagines herself becoming a tree, undergoing

strange metamorphosis,

 

daphne and peneus both. shapes herself stern to stem:

gnarled sluggish roots, tender heartwood, brittle

outer bark fissured and bearded with emerald moss.

 

her limbs are leaden, laden, a fortune

of young shoots all in furuncle ready to burst

into fervent blossom. 

 

she pays no mind to the hinky stares of woodland

beasts. the animal, animate sounds of rut.

 

alone, she tastes salt and copper flooding her mouth.

dreams of fire to prune her leaves of mast.