Amongst leaning, peeling birches,
A man rubs his,
Whorled knuckles,
Where he once got in a fight.
He remembers,
Blood and salt and how through snarls laid that bastard out.
He recalls Taxonomy.
A snowy flower with ivory petals,
Leaves with defined Venation.
There.
A Trillium. Stem curled, petals plaintive,
It is illegal to pick.
He breaks its neck, and his heart pounds sedentary blood,
Like a sudden clear of a water main.
He capers back through the wood until,
He sees his grey, beaten Toyota Tercel,
Through the trees.
Catching himself on a trunk with a crooked arm.
Trillium in hand, he stares.
