If I lived somewhere warm, it’d be easier to disappear.
I could just lie down on the ground and let the undergrowth creep to cover me
let the vinca curl around my fingers and knot in my hair
the kudzu blanket me in waves of undulating green
honeysuckle wrapped tight around my arms and legs to keep me still.
When the sun came out, kudzu flowers would open like bright red trumpets
all over my body, the honeysuckle flowers would release their sweet perfume into the air
and not even deer or dogs would be able to find me
under the scent of greenery and blossoms.
And unlike here, where everything dies back in the fall, if I was somewhere warm
more and more things would come to cover me, a mossy-covered dead tree limb
exploding with bracket mushrooms, dew-heavy pitcher plants
a carpet of webs spun by ambitious stretch spiders. Curious frogs
would be drawn into my orbit, bright green and golden-eyed,
perch unknowingly on my shoulders, my hands
sing the sort of happy pond songs always performed in the distance
never as close as I’m hearing them now.
Grey Sparrow Journal 