The woods you know. The woods are owned.
You can bike their footpaths and climb their deer stands.
You can daydream in their clearings and camp
With gray squirrels, never far from a road.

Forests are possessed. Forests you can’t understand
Or explore without losing or fooling
Yourself. Like stories, they start to glow.
Like the sound of something licking itself in moonlight.

When you think you know a city, the city
Shifts. A pandemic hits. They block the bridges.
They loot the shops. A florist pimp
And bootlegging mob boss, deep in the wilds

Of his showroom, mums in one hand, one hand
On his gun, hums “Dear Midnight of Love.”
Then come wading through the fragrant noon
Three rival goons, all arms and spit and mettle.

Cities act more like forests than woods
But less like forests than they should. No more of this
Romance. Doorbells babble. There’s a muted rattle.
Blood and petals. Glass then brooms.