Armistice of Wood

An Armistice of Wood

At Shiloh, The Marne, and Waterloo,
Srebenica, Auschwitz, and Dien Bien Phu,
wherever the slaughtered dead soaked the earth
the marriage between man and forest grew.

The skeletrees
embraced the memories
of the long dead, saying:

"You died alone
bleeding into this earth
with no mother
to kiss your eyes.

"Press your face
into mine.
I, your mother,
never left.

"Now we are one
and every spring
we rise again
green, victorious, redeemed."


The Palazzo, Grove Adjacent

"How do young things
afford these rents,
by turning tricks?"
he asked himself
as he parked underground
and climbed in the elevator
with a wobbly sylph
her blurry face framed
by wet, black, curls.
"Twenty minutes ago
I lost my purse, my keys,
and all my cash."
One lovely nipple peeped above
her elastic
halter top.
"If the thieves have your plastic
cancel all your cards
soon as you get home,"
he thought.

But by that time
she had gotten off on the second,
and he was on the third,
wandering the zigzag maze,
looking for his friend,
who wore Ugghs, a denim mini,
a translucent wife beater,
and seemed glad to see him
through her drunken haze.