27 October 2021
“Might be image of
Nature and a tree,” flashes
Instagram, precise
Aloe leaf fresco
Shadows self-shadowing self
If you believe it
Capable of self-
Expression trees now migrate
North to escape heat
Underground railroad
Stacked with living trees, clacking
Past the barking dog
Past stuck commuters
Past what was the village green
Before this last drought
Made kindling of church
Steeples and the ghosts of elms
On what’s once main street
Love what’s most fragile
The fungal interstices
Like train tracks that dare
You to cross: Black man
In New Orleans said he’d been
Arrested for it; paused, jumped
Between cars, over--
Tacoma’s Black Lives Matter
Signs, white neighborhoods
Warning themselves. Death
Is like judgment, but is not
Is category
Driven to extremes
By precarity: wanted
Soul mate with stubborn
Sense of self, sturdy
Sentences forget para-
taxis for rigid
Grammars: after he
Died she fell apart, after
Dirt there’s always dust
When he said ashes
I broke open like walnut
Into hemispheres
My meat laid out on
A table I got put back
Like puzzle, like cup,
Red streaks mark boundaries
Between shards, where the pot re-
Accumulates, scarred.
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