Strange land behind my eyes,
or some unsettled thing in the wind,
a vision of my wife, shoeless,
steps over the November grass
of our backyard. I watch her
behind the thin red
curtain of a bay window.
She ghosts into the tangle
under the old growth elm,
stares into the tree’s grey, its leafless
and withering gnarl. And then
she embraces it and begins
to climb, as sure as a child.
She works her way up and, near
the top of the last branch thick
enough not to break, she strips.
First, her sweater. Then her blue
bra. Her small breasts pale
the purpling sky. She slips
off her jeans and panties, sliding
her thighs with the limb to wiggle
them down to one ankle where they
dangle a second before she kicks
them to the undergrowth.
She presses her face to the elm,
her yes closed, arms cradling.
Her knees gently grip,
flesh flush with bark.
A lace of wind rocks the limb.
I watch the dusk deepen
around a congruence of breeze
and tree, of me and she.
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