Annette Marie Hyder

You bring me words
sweet and succulent
hold them in the hands of your mind —
hands scratched by thorns
and with dirt beneath their nails.

Your mouth is a basket overflowing
with hand-picked berries just for me.
Your eyes show me flashes
of fur, of feathers
in the thickets of your thoughts.
Vines cover every branch
in sinuous, sensuous green.

You want me
to walk with you
in the wild wood.
I want those berries
your thorn-scratched hands
and your basket too.