with gasoline. Struck the match.

A woman climbed a tree, hundreds of years older

than she was and slated for lumber.

She camped there two years—

hard to imagine, remember.

The world went on. We know

the statistics but who

can keep the numbers straight?

Who wants to hear more

about the fingers, tongues, bodies

chopped off, cut out, blown apart?

I think about stones, heaped like holy bones

over street-tree roots in Brooklyn—to keep

them moist—and the man

guarding them. He doesn’t miss

a day, an hour. If someone lops

off a branch, steals a stone

what else disappears?

Check off the box for “love,” add

my sister, who upends time

watching baseball on TV with her friend

who has fallen asleep in his wheelchair,

drooling and dying and unaware

that she is still there.