You came down to me in the hollow after work.
I was reaping my just dessert of overcommitting
myself this March to too many taps. I was resting
for a while on a stump, listening to the steady
drip of sap in the pails. You were dressed
in a skirt and purple blouse, whistling to find me.
I watched you descend through the trees like a goddess.
Diana’s sister, perhaps, whoever she was, the one
who lost her modesty. I had ten more gallons to lug
up the hill. “You think each tree is a girl,”
you said. “The way they stream from their holes.
The way they yield themselves.” Yes and no,”
I said. “The way the first drop explodes
from the spout, followed by the second and third,
I thought of boys myself, but of you say girls…”
“It could be both,” you said, “like Shiva.”
I took you in my arms and held you like a tree,
slipped my hand under your skirt. I was happy
in my confusion about which was which with regard
to the trees, knowing then as I held you in my palm
and studied the trees that science is wrong
when left to itself. I was seeing with both my eyes
that the world was one behind the guise of leaves.
That the heart of my hand was deep with darkness.