just as I don't believe
they
won't come
and chase us back to the colored-only shore
crisp with litter and broken glass.
"When do we kill them?"
"Kill 'em? Hell, the water does
that.
They don't feel a thing ... no nervous system."
I decide to believe this: I'm hungry.
Dismantled, they're merely exotic,
a blushing meat. After all, she
has
grown old in the South.
If
we're kicked out now, I'm ready.
William Meredith
A COUPLE OF TREES
The two oaks lean apart for light.
They aren't as strong as lone oaks
but in a wind they give each other lee.
Daily since I cleared them I can see
them, tempting to chain saw and ax-
two hard-woods, leaning like that for light.
A hurricane tore through the state one night,
picking up roof and hen-house, boat and dock.
Those two stood: leafless, twigless, giving lee.
Last summer ugly slugs unleafed the trees .
Environmental kids wrote
Gypsy
Moths Suck.
The V of naked oaks leaned to the light
