The Laurel Tree

A fury runs through the wood --
each enormous leaf bends over.
If I could say a prayer,

or find a rotten tooth
or drink the herbs, I'd know
how to heal the blessed
surf, the lisp of spotted water

on boiled iron -- meat and tongues
burnt with that milk shaft. Stones
like so many kernels

crawl in my toes. All day
I sit here knowing
what I've bargained
to own and won

a thing or two to learn about
what to speak of -- as if
I had a voice --

about what to hear: eyes
dialing in the sky, a rock
tureen in the shoals. If I
had sight, I could reify
a quill,

saber: the twilled
reeds, and thread edges.
As far as I can tell,
three million

flowers fill my mouth,
even the juice
is silk yellowing
and lips howl on my trunk,

cracking. As far as I can tell,
I am a privileged woman
with my green cranium,

the orange bulbs
in my throat, my ridges
of bark -- and all
hold roaches spitting,

hardening from my leaves.
I hate to see
them fall
from my ears -- as if I had ears --

and my own craving to hate
hates. This is a wickedness
in me. It must be or I

wouldn't have to plead with the sun,
my own ghosts tapping
me, tasting me.

As far as I can
tell, I'll never believe
myself nor how I changed
by running -- nor

will I know what it means
to lie -- as if I could
succumb now -- now when
the flourish
of my chastened language murmurs:

restore, permit, languish.

-- published in Phoebe, The George Mason University Review (Volume 21, Numbers 1, Fall/Winter 1991-2)

Copyright Louise Robertson