There are theories why we should not touch. They say
abrasion, sunlight, infestation — and we nod like sages,
our mouths full of leaves. Only in storms do we bend,
pendulous, sway cheek-to-cheek. Our aching arms
are bark-flensed, twig-lashed, their bashful growing tips
briefly forgotten. Sometimes a passion stirs within —
ticking beetle, petiole, rising sap. My anthers (they tell me)
are dorsifixed and dehiscing. To be direct, I am afraid
daily of the insect pilgrimage, the caravan of devastation
a single trespass brings. All summer long I grew tall
in heat and haze, lulled by your ether’s proximity.
Have you noticed lately all the ash? These mornings,
I wake frequently covered in dust. Yet remember that
other life when we lay on the forest floor, stippled,
dripping silence? Had we looked up, we’d have seen
how the canopies almost touched: their edges a jigsaw
of perfected cracks, sentenced in light.