The Whole Dark Forest by Rebecca Roy
‘She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her’ – Tom Waits, on his wife She’s got the whole dark forest living inside her. Ivy winds in a creep up her spine while seedlings shoot, from the tips of her sleeve and if you smooth her skin the light press of leaves can be traced, like an inked page from a textbook of botany. In rain she secretes oils to remind one of spring.
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She is rough to touch, grown along contours of defence, given to contortions in search of the light they repeatedly hide behind tower blocks, which crop up unbidden. She’s a modern woman in a time of deforestation, caught in the onslaught of sub-contractors from the city. She sheds so you may not pick her clean and leave her bald for winter. The colour of her lips is crushed pigment of poison berries; they move in reply to the enquiring moon hung behind its stage-screen cloud and the debonair wind she lets part her shroud to exhibit her nakedness.