cutting down that tree

cutting down that tree

NEIGHBOR LADY, 50, 

divorced mother of one 

in local college sweatshirt

and pristine white sneakers

takes a soft half step into my garage.

NEIGHBOR LADY

I need help.

I, 27, a hammer in my hand,

a nail like a cigarette in my mouth, turn.

ME

With what?

NEIGHBOR LADY

Follow me.

It was a one

of those subdivided neighborhoods

that had been built quickly

in the time when money

flowed freely

right before the banks

and the overborrowed 

got needy.

The contractor had kept it simple,

four variations of houses:

model’s 1, 2, 3 and 4.

She had 1,

I had 3.

We walked through creativity,

the front yard

between her house and mine,

the side lawn of which 

I mowed my half at an angle,

the degree 

depending on the week,

while she cut her grass 

like a haphazard bee

when it’s hive 

is about out of honey.

At the back of her house 

we stood,

time traveling to the thought 

that if Rome wasn’t built in a day,

then neither did its destruction occur 

in a timeframe of similar possibility,

a slab concrete patio,

14 by 14,

as simple a life

as the rest of the neighborhood,

only one hundred and fifty feet from me,

but right in the middle of her patio 

was a table

and instead on an umbrella

it contained a tree! 

NEIGHBOR LADY

I need this cut down.

ME

It’s encased in glass.

Neighbor Lady steps onto the patio,

travels in time, 

and becomes my Grandmother, Mother, and first Lover.

NEIGHBOR LADY

You’re gonna let that stop you?

You know that's it,

we can look in the mirror,

but we’ll never see 

what others perceive;

you tell me

if faith

is different than belief,

Thomas had to place his hands in His 

to know exactly that reality was where he lived,

but let me get back to the narrative,

because Hollywood knows 

that flashbacks 

have no place in a script. 

I swung an axe

with the energy of a kid,

stroke after stroke,

a fuck, a shit, and a damn

to realize that the harder I tried

the thicker the tree got;

I took a smoke break,

had lunch,

texted anyone who has ever lived,

as an actor in our story

we aren’t told 

how long ACT II actually is.

A day, a year, a decade passed,

and the tree still lived!

Frustrated, I looked at my phone 

to see the time frame had been 10 minutes.

ME

Alright, one last attempt.

I walked to the sword in stone

and like King Arthur pulled on it.

The Neighbor Lady opened

her sliding glass door.

NEIGHBOR LADY

Here’s $10, thanks for getting it.

ME

Keep it. I needed this.