My neighbor says I must cut down my tree.

She dislikes vegetation.

 

Her backyard, coated with orange pebbles,

Shimmers with an icy pool.

 

Who could resent a leafy mesquite’s shade?

But she says

 

The evil little yellow flowers

Litter the yard, clog the pool drain

 

The roots push up the earth,

Split the patio brick

 

Unsettle her as if

In the throes of an earthquake.

 

The return of the repressed (I say)

The mesquite doing the dirty work

 

Of human psyches everywhere, metaphorically

Refusing stillness

 

Until we chop it down.

 

What is a metaphor

If not a way of disappearing

 

To see and unsee

The porch light, the bird out by the fence

 

The book’s turning pages?

(If not a way of thwarting

 

The long oblivious darkness

Our words fall into?)

 

Even my busy, glorious

Mesquite, reviled and loved

 

Will eventually vanish, I assure her.

One day the earth will bear an empty shine

 

And spin a little more lopsidedly

Without the trees and us.