Bialowieza Forest

Aileen Bassis

Let’s lose ourselves in our city of stucco

and brick, in crowds swarming through cross-

walks and pooling over sidewalks. What’s there

below the loose flap of scaffolds and lights

turning on and off? Will we walk once more

through damp-walled alleys in Venice,

hear water lapping at every turn, or stand

on a shore in Skagen where

the North Sea meets the Baltic 

in a line of pulsing waves

that have no end, hear seals

barking beside rusting oil tankers

from the east. When will we

see that moss-thick Polish forest

of oak and pine, green shadows ribbed white

with birch? Don’t ask for anything.

Great-horned aurochs have vanished

from that forest and soon, the wild bison

will be no more.