Ladder, 2006

Once I stood on a ladder and cut down a tree.
It was autumn and I was wearing a skirt; dressed to a T.
My friend pulled up on his bicycle, just behind me,

the limbs fell at once. I try to feel his rush as
that crack happened—he broke to a standstill.
Me, standing taller than usual. I remember him exclaiming,

"I tend to climb trees!" Cutting down our weed-trees.
Cleared out the rubbish and then we had to go.
There was nothing for us to hold onto anymore.

We just left. Scattering in the heat of August when
everyone was at their cabins, up North. We pulled out
to different directions. A clean-cut man now trims

those trees. He keeps buying Mercedes, for some reason,
not known to any one. They are comfortable. They make
him. I'm wearing clothes that swish and swirl.

I'm a beauty. On a ladder. Cutting down trees. Weed trees.
This season, a full-turn, I cut out unwanted vines,
I pull them from the roots—twisted and turned

within the things I thought were final. Unhinging and
dispersal. A coming-apart. A dissolution. A disolving of what
was true. A dilution of solidity. A changing of forms. A blooming

in the autumn. I am a dark-red flower that thrives in the crisp breeze.
My stems are stiff. I can't see if that plant reappeared—this year. Like her fibroids,
a rope, twisted in my abdomen. Pull hard, and release. A jolt and then, its gone.

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© 2010 by Felice Tebbe. All rights reserved.