Marriage

Marriage

Two trees stood near one another in a field.
A strip of brush ran between them like a sentence 
Scribbled out in a letter.
In spring and fall a farmer came to work the ground.
It would have been easier for him had they not been there.
Their presence distorted the furrows, 
Which had to bend around them
Like starlight around a black hole. 
But his father hadn’t cut them down, so neither had he.
His father hadn’t cut them down because his father hadn’t.
Then one spring the farmer didn’t show. 
They said nothing, which was more than they’d ever said,
But they knew that his not coming meant something.
One day a truck was coming across the field,
Pulling a trailer that bounced merrily over the furrows.
A man with a red beard got out. 
The first thing he did was he lit a cigarette.
Then he walked around them, smoking.
Maybe he was a painter, the trees thought.
Then he was at the tailgate trying to get a chainsaw to start.
Probably not a painter.
The saw kept sputtering out into blue smoke.
There was hope.
Then he got it started. 
He stood there revving the saw, 
Trying to choose which tree to start with.
Even if he had been a painter he would have had to choose.
Then he came towards one of them, 
Swinging the saw lazily at the brush
Like a batter waiting for the next pitch.
The other one had to watch the other one being cut down.
There was no helping that.
He was only one man and they were two trees.
The worst part was when the one was on the ground
And the other was still in the air.
But it wasn’t long before they were lying down together.
Starting at their feet, the man bucked them up 
Into manageable chunks
Which he tossed haphazardly 
Onto the trailer, all together, 
As if they’d always been one tree.
For the first time, they saw one another’s rings.