I walk among the
too-tall pines,
lonely sentinels who
alone still bare their green.
They are
unashamed
in the colors they show,
natural exhibitionists
in a world of barren arms
and almost-snow.
I squeeze around their
stuck-out branches,
sometimes stabbed
and sometimes poked.
That’s the thing with trees—
there is no tenderness,
there is no intimacy because
it's all a joke.
Their pines and their needles
stick to your warmth,
cling to the heat that
rolls off your body in
thick
moist
heavy puffs.
How I hate them
and their everlastingness,
how I despise their
infinity.
One by one
I have cut down their branches,
have snipped off the green
in thick, poky batches.
Carefully and
quietly I
arrange them
in the slush,
build them into
a body that I can
slip into when
there is green abound
and the Earth
is lush.