after a sprig lit

i took a purple crayon to a giving tree,
left someone else’s initials all over her leaves,
lit a string wrapped loose around her chest
to perhaps glow your hands together,
preach further about preening in dark spots
& how best to leave the woods alone

an owl told the moon about his morning,
the cats next door keep greying.
all the livestock on pompeii tried to flee
to the ocean & you won't  even come
back to bed. what planet's keeper are
we to be, choking on boysenberries in our sleep?

the window was open the morning after the fire.
the dog sputtered some smoke & you fought
the cops with matchbooks & empty palms otherwise
& the biggest pair of balls the neighborhood's seen
since the last tree burned down years ago. carved with
orchids the whole trunk a love letter to new york,
taking twenty houses with it, all summer long
it smelled like death in the berry fields