“Wire/protects the beech/from bladed lovers/initial-besotted for years,/each letter a small death.”
and the arborist is in love
with a weeping beech
pulling tulle taut
around its curved trunk
nymph-proofing its silver
scarred bark with netting;
is in love with bolts
of fabric riding backseat
in a motorized wagon
driven by the apprentice
gardener. Call him young,
call him old, call mothers
lethal, burying their eggs
in the cambium. Wire
protects the beech
from bladed lovers
initial-besotted for years,
each letter a small death.
The arborist waits to breathe
when the apprentice snags
tulle on the steel mesh,
catches the cloth
on its tiny hexagonal
gaps; waits to gasp
as a green-winged lyric
crawls where she wants to.
JoAnna Novak’s fourth book of poetry, Domestirexia, is forthcoming from Soft Skull. The author of three books of prose, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and other publications.
