I am afraid the tree can’t draw
in the carbon, so the dry exhaust
fills my lungs instead. We suffocate
together. Our thick dark limbs,
sun-scorched, smothered.
The bark flakes at my touch,
until I am tearing long ribbons,
shedding them at our roots.
A smooth, white-marbled trunk
emerges, and buried there, a small
grandmother trapped and freed.
My mother in the backyard asking,
What are you doing? You’re killing it.
She is crying. We are letting it breathe.
April Christiansen’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Inflectionist Review, Natural Bridge, Passages North, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas and lives in southern Oregon with her husband, dog, and two cats.