Purgatorio, Stockton House, 2008
Illustrated by Ella Clayton.In my youth, I had a tree that
Whispered in the wind. It was dark, that tree,
And when I was alone—seven, six, five years old—I
Thought a witch would live deep within it .
Later, when my own milky bark stretched beyond the
Clingfilm devotion of my youngest skin, I had another tree.
It was never mine to claim, but now,
As I reflect, older, wiser, stronger, bolder, weaker, much weaker
Than a nine-year-old that saw faces in the sky, that
Only saw scabs weeks later, bruises months later,
Scars years beyond,
I know that the maple tree never left me.
When I think it is butterflies in my chest, it is those spinning leaves
I always wanted to keep—and god, for leaves, they cut! Yes, they
Slice the dispositions I hold dear and when I stand
On some shoreline that looks east,
They rise, they rise, these maple tree spinning eels,
And stretch against my fingertips— god, and hell, and him, that
Spirit-dead-surely-alive wanderer (Dante, the fool), he span around those circles
And if I ever take the trip to those rings,
The floor will give in and it will be made out of a leaf and
I am the heaviest fall of rain!
(and breathe)
I want to hold someone without those seeds, I want to speak with
My throat empty of any green—and even this thing, this thing
Of words, it is made by the maple tree.
Don’t you see—I have been spinning around a treacherous subject
For so long, and even that first utterance, that mumble,
‘In my youth’,
It is a spin. I reflect in a series of circles, and the reflection
Is a product of the seed.
My older sister used to extract and pull out the seeds
From the maple tree leaves. A sticky dew pasted on her nails,
She would get up and look ahead.
So much wisdom for a child. The phone call to
my mother hung dead
in my hand.
The hill with the maple tree could have been at
The beach. I do not speak to her,
the other one who gave autopsies
To leaves, but I know she would agree that the hill was
More end of the road than any road could have ever been.