Inscription

Arcades of plane trees arc Aves above the canal.

I know they are not a choir.

I know they are not Kabuki, tusk, knuckle, or

the swords and flames St. Joan rode into,

though it’s true I think of them as these,

and as the sky’s deep pockets of snow, white keys,

mammoth teeth. It is my way and my need:

mes amours, sycamores. My emblems on a crest,

gallery of visible ghosts. Mostly I love the light

they hold inside, the all-too-much and aged toujours

of them, their airborne electricities. Who’s to explain

affinities like these? Two seas were joined this way

in 1681, sparing sailors from piracy and storms.

In the 1830s, planes were planted on its banks

to protect vacationers from sun. Now a careless

tourist nicks a tree with rope and spreads disease

that will kill them all. Ceratocystis platani, traced

to munitions boxes brought by World War II GIs.

42,000 must be felled and burned to save, scientists

hope, the remaining planes, cousin to our sycamore,

that is the wood that made the box that held

the fungus riding in the waters of the canal.

Measures have been taken. The road to hell, etc.

St. Joan, finally, was burned to death for the cross-

dressing; Kabuki theaters incinerated by soldiers

for their drag shows and wartime sympathies.

Sorrow. Desire. There are so many auto fatalities

on plane-lined streets here, the French joke

about why the tree crossed the road. They burn

the hollows out sometimes. Inscribe vaginal lips

around the gashes in swaths of hot pink paint.

What we leave behind and what is left of us

are related questions. The graves in town are up

to three centuries old. Some crypts, forged crosses,

chipped wreaths of ceramic flowers. Earth gouged,

trees felled, buildings razed, never mind the lives.

In the new world, a fungus-resistant sycamore

is bred to replace relatives destroyed at the canal.

Measures taken. Like swapping out the burnt-out

bulbs on a string of Christmas lights. So what

if we are replaceable? Mostly I love how

we burst the prisons of our skins and shine.

Outside the cemetery, someone’s magic-markered

a locked electrical box with the words Sexe Toyes.

The plaques on the graves nearby are inscribed

Souvenirs and Regrets. Which are, even in my language,

polite ways of saying Done.