Tree dreams
If she holds her twig-brittle finger bones tight in a fist, her knuckle bones rise up white; stub-buds of new limbs, pressing her skin. They hover close, under the surface, wait for a signal, trigger. They itch for the light and to move in it, grow to it, drink it all in. They’re greedy. She glimpses their dreams some nights, dreams of branches, galaxies wide, of fruit like planets, seeds like suns. She frisks herself for gnarls and twists, reads each bone-knot as a sign; its time to change, the spring has come; they shoot from her like splinters, scythes, leave her skin-split like a pip and rise rise rise