sometimes, forest

sometimes, forest alternatively rails at and desires a fluid beloved, sometimes forest, sometimes lover, friend, mother, or an absence the speaker yearns for in herself. But the coastal temperate rainforest continues foresting, existing independently of the speaker’s wants or needs, a place of both refuge and harm. Returning daily to the same woods, the speaker notices minute seasonal changes and considers her own internal changes too.

Meanwhile, fires, heat domes, and landslides mirror horm...