Hartland
July 3, 2009 - 2:10 pm
Photo: Daryl Mitchell
for Evie
but it’s not about her
“It’s a wonderful tree,” she says
wrapped tight in black hoodie
grey night, city lights
my bare arms exposed.
The chill shoots up my back, i’m so tense
it’s just some old friends, and this park.
Sixty seven degrees
she says it’s going to snow.
This is the tree where
her and her ex-boyfriend had sex
and a bird shat on her shoulder
and he wore it the way home.
And then they cheated on each other and broke up.
They’re meant for each other, of course.
This tree
as young as the city, nothing like
the can’t-wrap-my-arms-around-this
giants in California.
There’s a lake and one frog. And
I keep mistaking airplanes in the sky as stars.
Later on we’ll go to Waffle House
and not eat a single thing.
