driftwood

Driftwood

ˈdrif(t)wo͝od:

wood that is floating on the water

 or carried to the shore

by water

But not this particular piece, the one caught on the waterline
the one that rises yes, of course like the tide, only bidden by
the continuous teeth (isn’t all work like this) of the beaver who keep
rebuilding, keep the water of their sky from falling too low---

I find I’d like to have known the tree whose roots

shoot up from the pond like two bull moose forever hung

and dead now in their rut.  What was it like for the hunter the moment
he stumbled on the stuck carcasses of them in the woods,

two bulls bled out, defeated, deflating.  Does he wonder maybe

after he says shitfuckJesus what it’s like to die that way, the fight going out

of them like a sudden (but then slow) puncture and the panic (listen, wouldn’t

you?) of knowing there’s absolutely no way out now,

enemies locked together holding like glued fists their almost bones

(how did they get them out, how did they (didn’t they?), the game
wardens, untangle them, unhook the intimate latches and see where the trouble

was and poor bastards their way through the woods and say

never me never me and go home later with some animal

drive to take their wife (and for a crack of a second any

girl…(or boy) would do and make and make and make

and bawl and brawl and strike and lock, their pelvis trembling

their breath on the precipice of their grinding jaw?  Didn’t

they?  And safe in knowing they can get out alive, ultimately

it all gets unlocked.  The bulls die together hours maybe days

apart, their antlers their ballsy prize their undoing and the sky

rains on them and snows on them ravens beat down on them
and for a time they are iceentombed and then melted through
and through and the wardens gift them to the state museum, heads
now and glass eyes and completely absent of life.  I like to think

this tree, roots only now and dull bleach, grey as wet beach sand, has made the best

of the rest of its life, and if we wanted to take it away we’d have

to wade up to our hips we’d have to be willing to freeze

a piece of ourselves, a vital piece, maybe give it up

entirely but not know that was what it would cost

when we got in the water, and then, like those moose, or the man

finding them, panic first at our fall, panic a blazing track laid down

and the scorch on the woods road scars to an old old road only animals

and now us, (there’s no going back from such thrust up

beauty) know.