To the Pear Tree Out Back

To the Pear Tree Out Back

Will you never learn? We went over this last year. I climbed you --sawed, clipped and trimmed you for hours.

And didn’t you feel better?

Didn’t you have more energy?

Energy to put towards your creative endeavors?

Beginning with the fabrication of buds from which

Emerge white blooms-- easily smelled from the vegetable garden.

Finally finishing with

The Pear.

How inspired you are, my Dear Tree-- a spectacle.

I’d carry you to a studio and share your artistry.

Yet you insist on wasting ener-I’ll call you Hydra. 

Where I trimmed a branch last year, you generate five miniatures this year. Shoots protrude from amputated limbs where phantoms would be better.

So once again, the saw rests against you. The clippers extend from me as I sever the parasites you’ve constructed. 

Why do you exert yourself so?

Why not utilize the energy you claim from sun from rain

And produce flowers fruits and such?

Add strength to your trunk--mass to fruitful limbs?

Why waste your vitality on fruitless endeavors? 

Please, Wouldn’t you rather create a Pear?

Emma

Emma and I trudge through the snow. That year the snow began in late January and lasted until the middle of March. Winter started late. It wouldn’t let go.  We two sisters walk regardless; our boots fatten cross-country ski tracks.

We don’t talk. 

We don’t need to. 

We trudge.

Eventually, we come to the bridge, our turn-around point.  We’re tired and lay down in the snow.

We don’t talk. 

We don’t need to.

Emma and I were born a year apart. She’s pale with long, dark hair and glasses. She freckles in the sun, but just across the bridge of her nose. They’re pretty, her freckles; it’s as if she strategically placed each one.  I’m taller than Emma, with blonde curls and dimples.

At the moment, these differences are hidden beneath hats and scarves. We watch the snow fall on and around us.  We start as a skier comes upon us,

“Whew, you moved! I was afraid you were dead.”

We laugh and allow him to pass.

Emma joined the army late last year, looking to use her forensic science degree in the criminal investigation department. Right now she sends letters—letters in which she instructs me to read Phantom of the Opera because it’s dark, and also to read the first paragraph of Moby Dick because (in her words), “it makes you swoon every time.”  

In return I send her excerpts I’ve copied by hand from Walden and The Writing Life to supplement the Army’s allowance of just one book. I also inform her that the Barenaked Ladies’ new album is okay, but they’re sorely missing Steven Page.  We’ll listen to the new album when we see each other next and reminisce about “Be My Yoko Ono.”

 The sky darkens as we pull ourselves out of the snow.  

On the trek back we do talk. 

And I don't remember if I remember what we talked about. 

A Story About A Kinkajou (but not really)

A baggy, leopard-printed woman roams the streets of Broad Ripple. She stores a shopping bag beneath her armpit. It's creases match the wrinkles folded into her neck.
When the weather is hot, make-up cracks and melts off her face.
She keeps talking.
Why won't she stop talking?

 We're in Starbucks now. A girl walks by outside, her pet kinkajou in tow. Leopard-print woman storms the window. "A kinkajou, a kinkajou!" She screams.

She turns to me, "Look, a kinkajou!"

 Lacing a smile with condescension, I offer it to her,
"I'm reading [Steinbeck],"  I say.
"Look! A kinkajou!" I think.


A few days later I ask for her name.
"Grace," she says.
"Me too!" I blurt and look at the ground.
No. I'm Hannah.  But it means grace.
She extends her free hand. Her thick make-up cracks, streams melt down into the creases of her neck,
"It's good to meet you,
Grace"