rotten. One by one, we dodge their lifeless limbs // holes in our roof patched with pool liner and tape // I remember // playing under most of them, tripping over their roots // in the yard // It isn’t much, these memories. // What is a memory if not wishful thinking // maybe the final green leaf that succumbs to winter // I don’t know how much I have left // to give to sorrow, how much time I have // to mourn what is dead. // Most evenings I’m not even thinking about the trees // how their openings against the night sky used to form the profile of a horse. Truth is // I didn’t wish for them to live at all until they withered // haven’t looked for that horse in years // and now it’s gone. Who knows what causes the soil // to soil // what makes lightning strike // when it does. // Our family did the best we could to honor // that house, our tears // eroding // the unstable ground.

Alexa, play a song that can fill all of the empty space between dusk and dawn; help me forget what is lost in transition; I mean translation; or perhaps you can translate I miss you into something more firm; more ‘come back into my life without me having to ask’; carry me on your back into some dense forest where the trees block all of the light; ravenous are they—turning sun into a meal; I wouldn’t know any better there; I wouldn’t mind being consumed in green; in fire; in song; anything but what is left of day when night presses his firm body against her.