The oak died
in the last

baseball year,
thick dollars of rot

splitting the crook
with a winter step.

I had given up
on Kelly from

Corner Drive,
old enough now

to let go of
the desire in

her Lions
nightshirt.

**** moved in
next door, saving

me from
mother's cancer.

The sun was a
gnaw, I lived by

nightfall, engaged
to the femoral

moon. ****
played drums,

his father
chain smoked, and

I hunted the changing
braid that filled

the wooden air.
It was another way

to be, exile from
the sick-house,

eating the words
of books,

replacing
the things I had

been denied.
The sick oak lay

like a vacancy
in the center of the

yard, too far gone
even for firewood,

black ailerons
down in the wetness

of the mantle.
Lord,

I could barely
even look at it.