there’s frost everywhere

the 12th of december

scrape, drags, rake

    the leaves from your hair

wipe your eyes of that morning mold

    clear the fungi—clear your stare

maple, ginkgo, pine

    burst from your back 

—linking your lattered ribs to mine

climb that tall towering bone tree

    of vertebrae and blades 

    —from you to me

your shoulders mountains—

    collarbones the peak

freckled snow covers 

    lichen— languid, lonely; leap

from your profiled nose

    mark the unmarked, prove known

    the unknown

break journals, drawings

    —your wooden stare.

i destroy the untarnished

    to prove im really there.