Options

OPTIONS

The clothesline snapped

with one antlered shake

divided

two frayed ends

border a battlefield

of moose-cropped leaves.

A bull in rut

is relentless

like bone

sleeved in itchy velvet

or power 

influenced by money

or fear

censuring speech

still

willow has options.

When stripped

faded

to sea water silver

and stream tannin brown

willow’s taste grows bitter

or flows in branches, rising above

releasing catkin fluff from 

out of reach twigs

with purple-green hemlock 

and cinnamon spruce cones

twining in spectrum.

The future isn’t a single seed

freed in one direction

but a forest.