Daphne

Do you know how much I wish to be felled?

This is a poem that has not been submitted anywhere but one I felt like sharing in anxious anticipation of spring.

Daphne

Somewhere in the year 1958, a woman writes
a poem for Daphne, calls her a coward for
becoming a tree when she should have been a lover,
a dutiful wife. She should be someone's mother.

When the tree releases its blossoms, are they
as if her eyelashes, her shed fingernails?
Do you discern some delight in the sloughing off
of her non-desire, a hope you could share?

Half a century passes and three thousand women
usher in spring to a general assembly a hundred miles south.
Imagine their arrival to their desks covered in blooms.
Did their wives wonder why they received flowers unprompted?

I could live in that state forever, despite
every part of it poison. Could you blame others
for their hesitation? We aren't used to stems placed gently,
a season inside of a barrel in peaceful protest.

It isn't as simple as her hands, arms in elaborate
bandage of bark, sutures of bird-mouth.
If it was love she understood, she might have split
herself up the center, become an axe.

She didn't ask to be explained or loved. I am,
I am asking. I would split myself
for the right hand. I would sap unshielded.
Do you know how much I wish to be felled?

What would you do if I stepped out from
under my cruel canopy, if I changed my mind?
What if it isn't how I imagine?
Then again, what if spring?