Revisionist Poetry – “Mouth: A Child’s Voice” – Deep Roots, v.3

They came
with big hungry teeth —
metal teeth that sang
and breathed smoke.

The trees fell
like old men folding
their long bones.
Sap ran slow
from their necks,
sticky and warm,
and the ground tasted
funny after.

We go there
after the trucks sleep.
We call it the Hole-Wood.
Our sneakers whisper
on sawdust snow.

Stumps are mouths now.
We press our ears
and they hum.
Sometimes they tell names —
Alder, Elm, Hemlock —
like secret passwords.
We say them back,
soft as stealing.

Roots are ropes,
or rivers,
or ladders down
to the town underneath.
We crawl in root-mouths
with spoons and brave faces,
digging for things
that might have run away.

We find dark rooms:
a captain’s cabin,
a library for worms,
a station where trains sleep.
We leave paper boats,
pebbles, a pretty leaf —
a tiny treaty.
We whisper a promise
so the old trunks won’t be lonely.

Sometimes at dusk
our laughter breaks
like glass.
Sometimes it goes thin,
like wind in a rib.
We hear a knocking
deep and slow,
like someone tapping
from a place below.

At night I tuck my hand
into the hollow
and imagine fingers
that keep my name.
I think the trees
remember us.
I think the trees
have long, slow hearts.

We call the men Progress.
They call us kids.
We call the snow sawdust.
We call the cuts scars.
We call the root-mouths doorways.
We call the place Home,
though it smells of diesel
and the wet of sap.

When I sleep
I dream of roots
that pull me down
to their warm dark.
I promise to come back,
to bring a ribbon,
to say their names
until they sing again.