“The Forest and the Hill”

She stumbled through the nine-hill forest –
the pine trees seasoned with cracked moon-salt;
the ground littered with squirrel-nibbled cones;
her foundation was now tear-dried crust.
She tackled her way through rain and cold,
desperately shattering pine-tree bones,
searching for a hollow hillside host.
As time lost patience, her strength had stalled
and the ninth hill cracked the egg-shell stones.

She almost flipped the hill upside-down,
chanting her ‘Open Sesame’ charms,
before the hill yawned a modest groan.
She entered bow-backed and dropped her gown
then laid in the stone-cold midwife dorm
as she hummed along to mid-storm horns
and elevated her pubic frowns.
She jacked up on her steel-rusting arms
and geysers shot sweating, steaming moans.

The hiker combed the pine-tree forest
and breathed the needle-leaf concerto,
but he detected a rare false note.
He knew the wind’s a master flutist,
so he tracked the blaspheming echo
all the way to a hill’s yawning throat.
He sneaked in and let his eyes adjust
to the nutmeg dorm and then he saw
the Reaper, the girl, the wailing shoat...

Nathan Bednarek 2009.