Two Trees
By Angela Ball
In memory of Adam Zagajewski
I am drinking a tree. Not exactly.
Not as exactly as the branches
lay, self-sectioned, over the round space
they had shaded, till workers
piled them at the curb. Not as exactly
as I planted it, seventeen years
past. A fig. The map
of its leaf. Before leaving
last summer, I gathered
some fruit, froze it. Left much,
a last harvest, disrespected.
My breakfast this morning
was figs, blended with other fruits,
and the phone image of a tree
my friend said his great friend
had loved. That is, what is left of it:
inexact taxonomy, sticks
on a brow of ground.
