An oaken shard,
born from fallen
bough, its current
combs through
white-blond
grain, flowing
over freckles
hued like hazelnut
and deer hide
to split and swirl
in twin paint-strokes
around a black oval,
coiling over and
under, like the storms
of Jupiter’s eye:
a splinter,
a planet, a forest
of dust-mote mushrooms
hovering on
eyelash stalks,
fed on arbor’s
lifeblood—pouring,
roiling, orbiting
without root.