Gypsy Moths


In our backyard we had a tree
that lived. It was not like
ordinary trees, which rested solid
in the grass. This tree
has a skin that crawled. We dared
each other to touch its living bark
and we came away with caterpillars.
In jars, clinging alone to a stick and a leaf,
they bored us. We preferred the teeming,
devouring mass. If we had known the moths
that buzzed around the porch lights at night
were the same as the wiggly things
we held in our ticklish palms,
we might have loved the tree
as a giver of wings. Maybe it was
when my brother jumped
from an indifferent tree and broke
his arm that we began to dream
of roots instead of sky
and abandoned
the tree to live forever.


(september 2006)