She spends her days looking out the window,

her body a cloud her mind waves away.


The sun shines on, oblivious,

paints the grass in waves, the trees


in pale watercolor strips that fade

from brown to green. Gone


are the ridges and knots, the broken

branches, the individual veins.


She strains to remember the last time

she climbed a tree, tries to recall


the bite of bark on her palms,

the nip and tuck on thighs. She wants


to swim in memory, but her mind

sits like a pond in the distance,


without shimmer or reflection, a flat

unspent quarter of silver light.


At night she dreams of falling. Not

about the point of impact or the moment


after. Just what came before: the rope

turning venomous, striking flesh from each finger.


The wind forcing her eyelids closed,

steely rock-face peeling them back,


leaving a hole through which the rest of her body

did not have enough time to escape.


She dreams of snowy ibises settling to the ground,

their gentle descent marked by eerie grace.


She dreams of lovers she has yet to know,

of bottomless kisses she can’t run from,


of arms reaching to catch her.