Here is woodsmoke and mirrors,

a thought paused mid-

migration and fed to the parakeet

who sings all the ways this

is not there, and I am neither.

I might be water flooding the wadi

and soaking the samr roots.

Such a delicate tree has no means

to express me, any more than it has

the wherewithal to discard me.

There’s a gold souk where the wadi runs,

with a gold raptor in the window.

I’ve passed it so often, I’ve named him

Raoul. So you see, I have power.

There are scarlet macaws

in the pet souk, by sacks of rosebuds

and turmeric. Parakeets are ten

a penny, is what I mean.

Trees are like gold, but gold

is like dust. I fall to turning every leaf

and because I don’t know

what I’m looking for, I count

the flamingos in their sleep, their pink

heads tucked in their pink bodies –

little pink thought clouds. I think about you

is what I mean, and trees,

how cut in two, a tree is a measure

of weather over time,

each ring an exclamation laid down

in the dark, waiting its day.