We knew it simply as the tree,
unremarkable, without a single flower,
without scent but the scent of itself.
Yellow was the color of the house we lived in,
one Alight up the broken stairs,
the leaves began, layer upon layer
of green. Our son was the shadow,
dusk gathering under the leaves,
summer nights we breathed in the smell of it
green, the roots pulling water
in our sleep, deep within the dark green cellar.
The tree kept the house from poverty,
the limbs that held the porch in place
creaked like the screen door,
with each swing of the hammock.
We used to lie under the leaves and dream,
and what we dreamed with others
adorned the tree. The green afternoon
voice of the student soprano,
the five o’clock daughter of the piano keys,
and someone calling Jeremy home
unleashed a shower of leaves,
of coins, green and heart-shaped, into our hands.
Startled by a bird that flew one morning
into the house, we awoke to luxury,
the green years on Eustis Street,
summer and spring,
when we were in love,
still inventing our lives.
Missing the last bus from the square,
not even winter could make us feel
the poverty of the plywood chairs.
The sputtering of the gas stove
was a blue flame in the chilled branches,
smooth, shaven of leaves,
like the antlers of some gentle beast
stirring asleep beneath the snow.
The nights we walked home to the tree
and the tree was a web of stars.
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