It wasn’t real but it was true. The story I told.
Sea wind making the trees bow down, but not
to me. Between two cedars I make a door.
Open it. Walk through. It’s how I leave, exit

by exit by inciting an alternate ending.
Breaking away. What never happened
always happens. The world and its cruelties.
Out in the forest a spark in the big wide world,

in the small bones of my house. My roof
against the rain. Wall by wall against
the wild sea wind and the myth I create of it.
Falling down under the weight of the moss.

It’s how I create myself how rot by rot
by rote by paying the price which should
have been enough. Whatever I build falling
down. Erasing myself into legend, into a story

I never lived but live again. Dried bits of grain
chaff by chaff and I chafe at it. It was supposed
to be quick and easy. Myths have always been
the best part, pebbles I toss into the ocean, throw

by throw in the throes of passion, or something
like. Don’t mind me, I was only saying my life, word
by word, tale by tale with talons. Hoarding stones.
Counting stories courting the trees, fir by fir by fire.