My husband headed out
With chain saw, maul, and wedges.
I accompanied him as his spotter,
Just in case.

He cut down two trees in fifteen minutes.
After they fell, he made his way to a third one:
An oak,
dying on the embankment,
bowing downward.

I looked to the now thinned crown of the tree,
Noticed a few leaves attached to thin branches.
Some were still green.
The tree was not ready to let go
And I told my husband so.

Two hours later, the tree was still not down.
My husband practically killing himself to make it fall,
Pounding in wedges that would pop out.

And me, I was standing above it all,
Tasked to check the tree for any directional movement:
Right, left, straight on.

This one would not be moved or dispatched in fifteen minutes.
It was still on the edge of living.
Of remembering—
That drought of 1989 when its roots ****** up any droplet of moisture;
That winter of 1996, snow and ice almost bringing it down;
And the beautiful year of a warm winter and a temperate summer.

But then—from the top down—it felt
Something coming on, invading it—what it did not know.

Now, the choice.
To hang on.
To let go.

My husband stopped pounding and made another cut.
The choice—taken away.

In the morning,
she’d go to her sewing room again,
half-dressed
in a full slip, nylons, and black pumps.
Over her arm, she carried whatever dress or suit
she would wear to work that day.

She spread out the clothing on the ironing board,
sprayed it with fabric sizer--never starch--
and pressed
each seam and dart
and in and around buttons, cuffs, and collar,
placing the tailor’s ham here and there
when necessary.

In other houses,
mothers still in cotton bathrobes
made breakfast, packed lunches, and set out clothes
for children and husbands.

Those children and husbands
never saw what I did:
A woman up early,
ironing with steam and sizer,
one of several outfits she had made herself,
while holed up at the sewing machine
so that when a husband
came home drunk again
she could excuse herself from their bed
--to finish cutting out a new pattern or
to sew every last button hole of a blouse—
until he passed out.
Again.

I drove,
clutched and shifted gears.

He directed.
“Go straight there. Turn right here.”

I did what he told me—
only to find myself
stopped on a steep, side street,
in front of a line of cars
and too afraid to shift.
“I can’t do it,” I said.

He clenched, yelled.
I cowered,
gunned the engine,
let out the clutch.
But before I risked the stall,
I pressed in the clutch and the brake.

He shifted the car into neutral,
pulled the emergency brake.

While we switched places,
he apologized to the drivers behind us.