For Father against my will

Sometimes it is better to raze

                a forest, than to leave it

untouched. A deerling unchained

                knows the way his tendrils

shake, how hooves stamp & suture

               through dirt to pack the world

that was once together. I would follow him

               against birdsong, which is

to say, grow twice my size & hesitate

               between killing, or wounding.

The bite of woodland is an illusion

               of my own name. Those sloping

antlers I pressed my thumb down—flat—

               splinter to nothing. I am so

angry I could weep a wounded animal. I

               could cleave the earth in two

& nestle inside in open hiding. I

              could, I could, I could. Let the

purple organs of my body decay

               into root. This whole time,

I have been watching from afar,

              shadowed under bark.