Excerpt:

Candlelight and steam surround a small slipper bathtub. The water inside is displaced by a hundred pounds. Ten toes poke through the aqueous surface, and delicate hands hold a book above the vapor. “All Men are Mortal” is impressed down the spine. Reading its pages are two large eyes that express the why-the-fuck-don’t-I-do-this-more-often sort of sublimity. A shingle-bob of black hair curves along cheeks, hovers above shoulders. Annabel places a cigarette between her lips and sets her copy of Beauvoir on the floor. She inhales. The crackle of cloves teases her ears. The taste of cumin warms her throat.

Excerpt:

Behold: black forests of measure,

Lit solely by monochrome moonfire.

One encounters here, deep beneath

Needle branching cones, much difficulty

Discerning the contours of one's own hands.

Excerpt:

Under arboreal canopy,

summer becomes spring.

Crows scour riverbank,

hobbling on both feet.

Grass grows golden green,

whilst birches survey scene.

Stream whispers and babbles

                whuah-wuph

        bluah-phluph

– only the refrain.

N a t u r e ' s   v e r s e s    r u p t u r e    l e t t e r s.