tree removal 

we watch the men cut limbs away 
from aunt flo's house. fingers & knuckles
in the yard. i try to reason with the tree.
i have climbed her many times to escape
family gatherings where everyone had a face.
i tell her, "you need to not grab
the wires." she does not understand. 
i have never learned to speak the language
of the trees well. she says, "sometimes all the water 
is heavy." i sigh. our lost words. it is too late.
is it true that some unraveling cannot be avoided? 
that sometimes we grow in terrible places?
it would be easier i think if it were our faults.
instead, we were just roots searching. limbs
reaching for a lick of the burning sun. 
the men are methodical. they have
taken apart bodies before & they will again.
scale the torso. reach for shoulders. my aunt watches.
she's wearing her light pink lipstick, slightly smudged.
we are older than we used to be. us & the tree.
the tree becomes frantic. rips at the telephone poles.
i tell her she is going to keep her teeth. i do not know
when they are stopping. i panic too.
i ask my aunt, "are they taking the whole tree?"
she says, "i don't know." i go outside.
i'm ready to wrestle the men to the ground.
ready to tell them to take me apart instead.
they have stopped though. the tree is cactus-shaped.
no longer climbable. i tell her i am sorry but 
it comes out wrong. she says, "they told me
to grow in the blue place." i don't know 
who they are or where the blue place is. 
the men pick up her arms from the yard.
i take a fingernail. a little twig. a relic. 
she goes to sleep from the terror. on 
the car ride home i do too. we went outside
all together before i left. my aunt said, 
"now it's too small," about the tree. i try not
to be angry at her. i know the wires are important.
that they open the lights in the rec wreck room
& the fridge's little beacon. we all do what
we think we should. scattered leaves. eyelids. a hole in the sky.