Choke

 

Choke

 

He’s a creeper, a hawk dropped snake that wraps

mother trees in ivy gripped with teeth of steel cutter,

dog bites into good wood gone bad then lets fall

curtain shades of green just this side of seasick.

Quaint couplings that look good from a distance,

shortbread tin thatched houses, costumed gear cogs

connect and drive until one’s in one and fails to thrive,

grows bowed into something more dead than alive.

She tried these years to pluck it off but all came lost

in cancered coughs burrowed deep, wept toxic liquid

from within, he crusts on coats, digs skin circles,

slow in coagulating tears of slithered mock turtles.

But then that day, his final choke and all was over,

one still tree stands less grand, in browning vines

undressed, caressed by rotten weeds she grieves,

catch hold his struggled thoughts in fallen leaves.