Tonic 4 (Thoreau)

by Kristen Case

     I must confess there is nothing so strange to me as my
     own body.  I love any other piece of nature, almost, better.
                                                                — Thoreau, Journal

For instance this moss overtaking
the blackened stump the
wood pulling away from the bark a
crack the depth of which you can’t
gauge mosquitos slow and killable
this late hour of summer in which you feel
the slow dissolve of the social self
the grooved body of the oak
this picture-feeling of a pleasure you
wouldn’t call pleasure some
seasonal drift or weather-being in which
personhood is no
question