At the park’s edge
the telephone line runs
above the backyard fences
of old brick houses.
Between two poles,
along black wires,
hangs a hunk of wood
about the size of an ox head.
The tree’s journey must have been
a slow and beautiful one;
moving upwards, gradually
meeting wires, growing them into itself.
The tree is long since gone,
all that’s left—the chain-sawed
segment through which the cables run.
How many times have our voices passed
through dead oakwood, my love, vibrating
into afternoon as we came so close
to making an end of everything again?