by Ryan Norman

I could still hear the lake’s wooden teeth
chewing at the shore a thousand feet below
on skeletons of volcanoes, each wave a spicy drip
to melt the early wintered air as the sun
starred through the pine canopy,
which burned both iris and retina
as I searched for orange paint sprayed on
giant crags, sharper than my eyesight
till she called out I’m orange! I’m orange!
So, I followed her voice instead and the lake
stopped chewing in favor of the roar
of its sister-fueled crash onto naked stone
glistening under a moon-changeling sun.
It was her mist that kissed my sore eyes:
each kiss with tongue till my eyes were
sloppy wet. I pushed the damp cloak to
see the tree’s roots, bigger than its pointed
skin, deeper than its circular heart; and I
touched it knowing that circles go nowhere,
but the evergreen made me smile at its
barbed strength, each needle made from star
food, the same nourishment that scalds my skin,
and that’s what I get for touching stars on earth:
hands that no longer bend from inelastic scars
the same as its branches, broken in the wind,
which carries no secrets when the water screams
louder than that man with the selfie, seven layers of burrito
in his hand, numbering each year stuck
mid-air as every step was a slip into nothing
but the shallow creek below. Keep going she said,
and I listened because I, too, am water­–
the wood has left me wet and
lost in its orbital eras.

Ryan Norman (he/him) is a queer writer from New York living in the Hudson Valley. Ryan enjoys swimming in mountain lakes and climbing tall things. He is a contributing editor of creative nonfiction with Barren Magazine. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, HAD, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. He has two chapbooks I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A BOND GIRL (Daily Drunk Press) and CICADA SONG (Finishing Line Press). You can find him on Twitter @RyanMGNorman or ryanmgnorman.com