A sycamore stands
In a plain city lot.
The scabby lizard bark
Whispers
A dry rustle,
Flaking
To the muddy earth.

Oddments of monkey balls,
Bob on its branches
Like pendulous earrings
In a Salvation Army Thrift store,
The prize found in a box of junk.

The branches,
Delicate, distinct,
Swish in the wind,
A topsy-turvy broom
Sweeping
Winter clouds
From the sky.

What is this tree?

A second sight:
A heart begins to slowly beat,
In subterranean roots,
The midnight place where
Worms and insects sleep.

The pulsating sap,
Sticky blood-force of trees
Up miles and miles of arteries,
Into fragile, fibrous capillaries.
Like a river and its tributaries,
It divides
Co-determinate.

The two limbs reach
For each other,
Away from each other,
A dance, a flow,
One heart,
Two branches.

That deciduous longing
For the two:
The woman for the man,
The child for the mother,
The sister for the brother,

The bee for the flower,
The bird for the nest.