Poems From: Between Frames

 

TRASH

“Trash,” he said, as we walked the line

between our almost-country properties.

Again I pointed, trees and shrubs

whose names I didn’t know, but “trash,”

he said again. Anything not oak.

That neighbor knew three kinds of trees:

live, pin, and Spanish oak. The rest should go.

And now I’ve lived here twenty years

I know how chainsaws take out everything

that isn’t oak, not just the junipers

that choke the other plants nearby, but also

Texas buckeyes, magenta blooming in

the spring, redbuds, huisachillo, sweet acacia.

Mexican persimmon’s bark blends velvet

grays and silky browns, its rounded leaves

bright yellow-green before the purple fruit

draws birds that nest on into June—

buntings and the wrens above the grasses,

gramas and the bluestems. November,

the seed heads in waves of burgundy, of red.

Our city council said they’d leave the trees

when clearing for the city hall. But like

that neighbor years ago, they meant

the oaks. Now they’ve called a meeting.

Oak wilt has hit the neighborhood, and

oaks are what we’re left with. Too much

construction, trimming of the trees, their

wounds not treated. The virus travels

through the maze of connecting roots.

And once a tree’s infected, it’s trash.

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(First appeared in Falling From Grace in Texas: A Literary Response to the Demise of Paradise, eds. Rick

Bass and Paul Christensen, Wings Press, 2005).

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PAIN: MANAGEMENT

It moves from my right shoulder toward

the spine. A fist. It digs in. I’ll walk,

take a long walk. How far, it asks.

It’s almost dark, it says. I say I’ll read.

What year, who wrote it. Not you, it says.

I open the back door, step onto the grass.

A leaf gleams. No matter, says the pain,

it’ll all be drowned, the rain, and then, the cold.

I move inside. What have you done today,

it says, almost over, out of time, time’s up.

Come morning, it’s still asleep, I try not to wake it.

I’m loading the washer. The easy things.

Laundry, I tell it, go back to sleep. Why bother,

it says, nobody looks at you. Its fingers open,

reach up to my neck and pull.

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(First appeared in The Chariton Review)