Felled Oak
For you, an eyesore, for me, an object
of light and form dignified by age
and trust, weathered or beaten, but there —
as if it would have reason to stay,
as if I had cause to see it as lovely.
My world, broken apart, as roughly green.
Now, they’ve cut it down into a heap
stacked up at the curb, its sympathies gone.
And you, indifferent to such things,
said you were glad to be finally rid of it
obscuring your view, so you hardly noticed
when it disappeared, exposing the sky’s
schematic blue, its warped branches
immutable as silence, gone, fixed into place.
I stare at you, then look away. I look at myself
passing the mirror, and consider the empty space.