Derelict
The diseased oak, its stoic body
an imperative don’t look at me,
is hoisted by a crane for the gathering crowd.
The cumbersome figure slung in the open
hangs from the treeman’s cable
now stories above the severed trunk.
Tonight I am cold.
What is one less body in the world? I orphan
all my children once every year. I have to —
what room would there be for the newly born?
Persistence and determination are omnipotent.
I gave my life up as model proof. And now
I know: only the acceleration of time is omnipotent.
The living flirt with directness, but the dead possess it.