comforter, a canopy with
wings spread wide, who listened when

I couldn’t talk to them.
You were my refuge from spring rains,

summer’s scorch and in winter
flakes of wet snow. I would stand

tight to your rough skin, your
thick body blocked me from the iced winds.

They couldn’t hear
our whisperings and the things we shared.

If I cried you would touch me
or do something to make me forget.

When I climbed way up in your arms,
I was taller, more powerful

than anyone below.
I always loved you in ways I could

never explain, and one day
you said my initials were yours.

I grew up, went across
the horizon, planted new trees.

Yesterday I watched them cut
you down, dump you on that

flatbed hearse, your limbs gaping,
graceless, uncoordinated, awkward,

sliced into grotesque pieces.
I followed as they carted you

crouched in your embarrassment –
uncovered – onto Main Street

like a freak show for all to see.
But somehow, even after all that,

you were still alive, juices oozed
out your sheared limbs and you lifted

a few leaves, waved into
a last wind. I turned from your

final humiliation,
unwilling to witness the very

end, after your last gasp, when
someone would warm themselves over

your burning bones, perhaps
laughing by the heat of your heart.


Donald Everett Axinn
From Against Gravity