hush

ask to be fed
& wait outside 
in the alley while
all the trees turn 
to black cherry soda.

from this view 
you might almost miss the sun 
as it straddles
the foreheads of buildings 
on your street. 

you feel the soda 
& you're hungry for it,
you want to drink 
the pits, the stems & all.

something is dripping
& a siren reminds you
that people get hurt even
on thursdays-- in fact
people die 
on thursdays.

the sirens collect bottle caps
& toss them at 
a brick wall.
they're probably working
to distract you
but you catch on.

somewhere the cap 
is being twist off 
the bottle & the bottle
is saying 
hush, hush.

the tree you loved
growing up-- the one
who's skin freckled
with caterpillars,
that tree,

plucks its roots
out of the soft rain-fresh earth,
leg by leg.

you follow it to see where
it's going 
& you find the tree
gathering friends & lovers,
coaxing their legs too 
free of the earth.

this isn't the first
time you've watched the trees
run bare but it seems
somehow different

& you trail behind till
you arrive at 
the bottling factory
where conveyor belts
of clear glass bottles
serve as shells for 
all kinds of plants
to run away to--

a potted fern 
becomes a bottle
of orange soda--
an orchid into grape soda.

the trees will be cherry soda
you know this because
this is the soda your father
always drank with a fist full
of ice in a 
sweating glass. 

you think again to the alley
leading to your house 
& imagine cherry soda 
instead of old rain water
trickling down the walls--
pressing your tongue 
to stone

eating stone,
just grazing the surface
with your teeth.

ask to be fed
& there is a bottle cap
being opened telling
your throat to hush 
hush.

you wonder what your 
father tasted in that black cherry soda--
if his bottles 
were also made of 
his favorite trees to sit under--
if he swished the carbonated 
nectar in his mouth 
or if he gulped.

carrying a case of the soda bottles
they clink & at first
you think the clinking
is your own bones.

you drink all the sodas
before going inside 
because you know you can't share
& then you plant the bottles
in the cobblestone ground,

telling the stones to 
be kind to whatever trees
might want to grow
in between these two buildings.