she is nowhere and everywhere

all at once, as

inescapable as the smell 

of morning coffee 

clinging to the fabric of

a well-worn sweater,

lingering on the laces

of dusty, mud-caked boots

she seeps into life in

fragments and pieces,

mirror shards that offer

the wrong reflection

the branches of trees

echo the curve of her

back, while her 

laugh lines are

etched into the coarse bark,

layered hues

of leaf veins like the

words sunk deep, 

shrouded by her eyes

and the moon,

whose light plays with

the color of her hair

as it paints the 

somber sky,

snatches stars through

the creeping growth like

stolen glances,

soft smiles in the

slope of a woodland

path with

no end in sight.