Here, arms of the forest, once embraced,
trunks, pressing hard, fast, deep into moisture –
once heated orgy,
become only the few:
desexed parents
sleeping on the edges of greened quilts,
unable to erase echoes
of the child asleep between them.
Nature smiles her temptation,
steps naked from the lake,
slips her slender body between them,
rises, falls, hands brush between breasts;
wind kisses, bites.
Bare wet nipples blush in instant heat
as fingers, trembling, delve deep
into milk-white thighs…
But under the colddese of blue skies
the strongest have mounted her so many times:
beauty, here, is purely the trees’ touch, tamed.
The raised brow in bough above her,
seeing naivety exposed,
reminds her.
Pulling her robe to sobered shoulders,
she sits up between them
needing the pill against being this:
man’s oldest, man's cheapest
lay of the land.
By Jackie Grice