Nitrogen Cycle
There is a darkness in the woods, but that isn’t the threat. The threat is the woodcutter making his rounds in the forest, axe ready to cut down a wolf or a great oak tree with its serrated leaves.
Sawdust, then pulp, then flame. A chemical treatment as a finishing touch. I never liked the college ruled pages, the lines too close for comfort. Nor do I like the grids, woven together so tightly not even the solstice can penetrate. I prefer the hollow lanes worn down over the centuries by humans, horses. Certainly deer. The trees closing in on either side, whispering their surreptitious rules: which brush goes where, what shade it offers, where a carcass should nourish the earth, a shot to give the woodcutter’s limbs one final push into the canopy.
A New Yorker now based in Maryland, Kimberly Go has started publishing again after a decade-long hiatus. Her poems appeared in elimae and Word Riot a long time ago. When she isn’t working in public health or drafting constrained fiction, she contributes list articles about pop culture to Screen Rant and The Gamer.
See more of her work in 8.4