Lightning, Hail

 

Last night’s storm split my favorite birch

in half, straight through her crotch and left

 

one leggy bough on the ground, her green buds

severed from their source, already thirsting.

 

Where she stood there is now a void—a swath

of blue-white sky and my neighbor’s beat up

 

red Bronco. Mostly there is a terrible gap, space

I didn’t know I didn’t want.

 

The surviving half of her is, I must imagine,

in shock. Lopsided, she looks like she could

 

collapse. Her splintered insides are raw, exposed.

There ought to be blood.

 

I think about the dangerous boys I gave my body to,

wanting to be cool and beautiful, loved. But behind

 

my back, girls called me a slut. That is some

self-respect I’ll never get back. Crews with saws

 

and pulpers come to clean and haul. I will mourn

my tree, but soon it will be like it never existed.