“There’s the present moment fraught with tangled woods.”
—Jack Kerouac, from Big Sur 

The doctor who’s not really
a doctor
yet asks her to find her 

safe place with eyes closed, to lie
on her back, see
nothing but that brown orange 

noise of inner eye
lids till it comes 

into focus—the edge 

of a field blurred into a pine forest so ripe
with needle
bed mint sweetness. 

All kisses before it got so complicated 

and the sun peeking through just
to wave hello 

and see you later when you get up
from your daydream—
I mean hers. 

It was her death to be 

so awake before all of you without
a cleared path
to escape along. It is about 

feet first, it turns out.