You are a stalk too high to climb or cut.
Your branches hold basins of petrified ink
which tell me nothing. I rely
on the way you shift your bark
in the wind, I rely on what I
carve into you, whether it heals
or not, whether you grow
or not. You do not make
it easy for me to turn you into
mulch like all of my
other lovers, who I’ve spread
in my garden. What a trash,
the time I’ve watered on
you. With your idle leaves
and your idol placement.
What are you but a nose stuck
in my doorway like a
hungry pet. Your roots
not so invested in the dirt
but rather in my spine.
You overcrowd my vertebrae.
There is much energy in
your billowing gloom. You
are a tree
which Fall does not harm. Never
naked, never vulnerable unlike I,
attached to your great tap root.
