iii.
The shadblow’s winter bark is grayish-green, and arcs
A double helix skyward like a double stair.
Its slender, ruddy, three-pronged twigs are mulberry
And beige, no bigger than my smallest fingernail.
The linden’s lesions, caused by fungus and decay,
Have fissured vertically, the clawmarks parallel.
And rusty dogwood, tiled in ragged, reptilian plates,
Is sparring with its fuchsia-colored, knuckled nodes.
The basket willow’s tasseled catkins dangle in defeat,
Its twigs unraveling a yellow-greenish yarn.
The black trunk of a beech bristles its thousand wicks.
Today is a daguerreotype, tinted and brittle with loss.
Light dims the field. My fisted hands burn.
The crow shuffles its wings, arching over, is gone.
