I was a boy myself once so don’t need

much told me about trees. I know to hide

in their boughs and filch their illicit fruit

before it falls to the ground and takes root.

I know to shinny up high then clamber

to where branches thin and the climber

feels a pit suddenly yawn in his guts,

up where twigs extend to buds, where height hurts.

Something about a tree doesn’t really mind

the theft of its fruit. A tree is resigned

to a boy swaying in his tenuous

crotch, dizzy at his chosen precipice.

Something about a tree wants to be climbed.

Something about a boy wants to climb it.