I watch a bird (tiny

blur of orange 

and black) fly 

past me,

land on a branch

and lean forward,

so that its shit falls

like a skier leaning

into the slope, 

a white line down

the backdrop of bright 

green. 

 

Scattered pine cones look 

like logs left on the forest floor

like surfaced shits I’ve taken 

in the wild,      how free and clean 

they seemed compared to so 

many public bathroom options:

the organized rest stop, the paperless 

gas station stall, the tamponed thrones

of my road trips.

 

After biking 

twenty-five days 

(camping 

and crouching 

our asses 

in the weeds)

the one thing 

I did not want 

to return to 

were traveling 

toilets:

 

it’s so much cleaner to shit in the woods.