it starts with a zipper in the rain
that soft syllable
an oak leaning into
its impending death
you can shelter under it
as open as a book
it starts red and wrong
as an oak apple
old sapsucker holes bleeding
pale sap down a spruce
rain collecting in a hollow
atop an exposed birch root
so the tree can mainline it
like an autumn addict
mushrooms glory
in their fruiting bodies
as black drupes swell on maple-
leafed viburnum
and beechdrops’ self-fertilized flowers
hide under a twiggy bouquet
it’s a kind of spring
buried in the heart of autumn
just before antlers turn
from trees into weapons
and every leaf in the forest
goes off-script
