Walk into a forest, one

that hasn’t seen you before,

in a land you’ve never visited,

or, better yet, not heard of.

Where nobody will look for you.

There will be places, thinned,

where you can see the sun,

the trees beyond the trees,

a path worn across the floor.

Like the endless false apologies.

Don’t let these fool you, or

birth some hope of escape

that will nag at the parts of you

she left without atlases of scars.

Not that such parts survived.

Keep walking, then penetrate

so deep you can see nothing

past the crazy prism of colors,

the palette of the varied pains.

She was an experienced artist.

Stay. Let your self dissolve.

Be a fungus born of old leaves.

Then wake. The scars will stay,

until you’re reminded how to love.

Which is not the same as forgetting.

(after the 1901 painting, “Forest of Fir Trees,” by Gustav Klimt)