Boundaries
In takes me an hour to lose the road, to feel
the forest. I hop across small tributaries,
dark bog and leaves, the tang of sleeping pills
on my tongue. I’m relearning by body –
boundaries boundaries boundaries – a word
Eileen kept saying twenty years ago,
fresh from a course in life-coaching, a bird
with one note. I never knew how to say no.
Boundaries? today I ask the trees,
who look back, silent. But the air from these woods
is new in my lungs. And walking is a kindness.
I could no more have said no back then than the deer
could have threaded the fence that holds them here
Or the trees say no to these tightening roads.
