Outdoor Bathing

There is a dry bath I take
when confinements permit
where concrete and asphalt
barnacles briefly are shed.

The drive to it is enough
for me to loose the tensions
of the must be done now
lest I’m seen as failed.

The unmarked, unnoticed turn
onto grass centered earth
drops down into woods
so near they clasp the car.

The slow pirouetting through
ruts and sloughs and bracken
reaches plié in a glade so close
turning will be clumsy.

No paths or walks seen here
but the memories of deer trails
beckon into the undergrowth
and I shoulder brush on in.

Snow pockets are pearls in hollows
I breathe in rot and birth musk,
sunlight is mottled by swollen buds,
strewn boulders have lichen loofahs

The day is removed like overalls,
sullen chill scrubbing my skin,
the horizon a basin of trees.
The husk splits and shucks