Rainforest

I have been busy closing up these roads.
This papery terrain deflects visits.
The art of losing is a slippery slope and I am new at this. I am learning
To traverse the jungle through a gradual unclenching of my fingers.
To sit by myself is to sit inside the night
That promises to take me back to where I began.

This is what happens, then
When the poem you wrote looks back
Claiming instead to have written you.

This is a horror story that is read backward.
The jungle always enters slowly and then suddenly from the corners
Till the carpet curls up, catching fire at my feet. The shape of my sleeping head
Is new to you like an animal of the shadow. You fear you do not know me at all
Or I, myself, sitting like this in the dark, expecting something to stir in the still humid air.
I know this feverish chill before dawns, the lone desolation
Announcing how the world with you in it has moved on without me
And I am yet to see if this is to my liking.