Derek Robbins

Split and hulled—I’ve eaten the small brainhalf by half, prizing it loosefrom the brittle inner architecture.First, an oily sweetness on the tongue, and thenthe tannic dryness, its bitter signaturethat lingers like the taste of losing what you fooledyourself to thinking you possessed.Beside the housewhere you will never goagain, no doubt the treestill grows and each …

What is this stretch of wildernessI see inside my screen? Alpine lake and talus slope— inside? No, it comes to me like heat from a bedof campfire coals—light in this dark roomthat turns me shades of blue, green, gray, awash in nature’sstandard hues. But what is it? Not the scenebut that which holds or shows …