Dryad

resembling a pair of acorns as theypushed against the fabric of her blouse⁠— Han Kang, The Vegetarian: A NovelYou wake up in the morningwith the sap run outof your veinsinto a bucket at your bedsidethe sunrise has already come and swept away.You whistle for the feet you’dcurled like rootsinto the steep of dreamsbut they can’t lift themselves out of the earthwithout breaking off their toes.You touch your elbows and kneesas if they were knotsthe nightmare had loosened but couldn’t untie:hangman’s knots, perhaps, though you can’t recallit was suicide or an execution.All you remember is an evaporation.A scent you gave off all night.All you remember is the cold nose of the windthat seemed to be everywhere without a mouthand couldn’t hurt.Robert Perchan’s latest books are the comic futuristic novella Tropic of Scorpio (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2022) and Last Notes from a Split Peninsula: Poems and Prose Poems (UnCollected Press, 2021). His short story collection “Shocks, Meester?” is out now…