“Me & the Tree – Beyond Leaves & Hands” by Bobby Parrott

The oak tree I took in, 

spangled wave on retinal sky

through lenses short of lucid 

at first, as she focused my dance

into her mime of my hair 

doused in nonsense, crown shy,

death's gift a new friend revealed

in a sprout, a seedling thirsty

for light who knows trees can’t 

have eyes and a human can’t have leaves–

struck open in this momentary blur 

as the can’ts did their can’ting

and words slid their sideways slide

to loosen our mossy heads, 

convention a shipwreck of sawn planks.

How unlikely I was she and she me,

my chlorophyll as it greens the yellow sun,

her feet free from earth’s viscous grip,

bark babied supple in skin to stretch

my branches out, strands of cloud in wind,

oh, the sighs of song my rubbing leaves!

In each lost self the portal we'd forgotten

beyond leaves, beyond hands.

About Bobby Parrott
He/Him/His

Bobby Parrott is radioactive, but he's not sure for how long. This queer poet had a life-changing epiphany about the intentions of trees, and his poems now enliven dreamy portals such as Tilted House, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Rabid Oak, Exacting Clam, Neologism, and elsewhere. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his house plant Zebrina and his hyper-quantum robotic assistant Nordstrom.