DOGWOOD
1994

I knew every crook and vantage of its branches,
high havens in the daylight that illuminated the cool cream
of the blooms. Alone in a white t-shirt three times my size
and hanging off a shoulder I'd climb and place
my bare feet where they'd made the bark smooth
and move limb to limb with arboricole confidence. As I
climbed higher, squirrels would acrobatically bail, slinging
themselves from the twigs to catch and clamber up
the oak across the yard, vanishing in its gargantuan leanings.
For hours at a time I'd hide and listen to nothing
but the slish on slish of leaves around me, breathing,
slowly, with lungs as pink as the edges of those petals,
yet unaware I had lungs at all—unaware there was
a single thing, within me or without, that I could not see.