Lusus Naturae
BY TORY ADKISSON
Between the sheets, it’s the same in the forest:
thriving on quiet moments of violence,
where we have the same tugged-on
hair, drink from the same empty stream.
Hunt, rut, hunt. Against these mottled logs
we loom like giants, snails shells jutting
from the bark like houses built into a cliff.
I whisper. O how I want it, the tickle
in my shorts. The little death that presages
my inevitable resurrection. Waterfalls are only
arresting for so long. Pin a man to moss
and what does he learn? You, how to grow.
Me, how to worm. Green weather brings
ants from the anthill, their tiny bites tiny nicks
of love. Or I want them to be. Without our flesh
they’d continue their march, just as the forest
is forever full of animals we still haven’t seen.
The fox I thought I saw bleeding past my nipples
wasn’t a fox. It was a fern. A red fern. A fern on fire.
