In the Shadows of Trees 



We walk in the darkness of Balboa Park

after the Glass Menagerie. A flock of 

geese showers in the succulence of grass,

squawks and then wings over our heads.

The others duck and shriek and hoot

but I plunk on my toes; I long for their

feathers to scrape my scalp, for their

infested skin to graze my face, for their

beaks to puncture the holes of my eyes. 



The air follows them as they soar above

blue-gold buildings made from concrete

molds of Spanish forts. We walk past

a Cyclops, his immense hands flowered by

olive-hued limbs, with one colossal eye

that sits in its trunk. Sarah says, “I adore this

tree: its curves, its size.”

 

She yearns to hide in its vast branches, to

be protected in the smooth obscurity of

its arms, to be closer to the moon, to feel

the sentiments of being held by a large, sturdy

man that could shield you from foreign accents 

and souvenirs. The stoutness of its crust tickles the

moonlike paleness of your abdomen, the silk

of its leaves caresses and embraces your face.



She is a small woman, and I’ve never even

known that she had a world nesting inside her. 

Like Laura, she is a woman of broken glass and old

records, of veils and big brothers. The tree is 

out of her reach, bordered by fence: at night,

her husband positions three quilts on the bed

for their cool bodies to bond under.



Maybe if I reach for her stone shoulder, 

if I murmur to her in warm monotones, if I paint

a painting for her, if I write a play for her,

she would understand me. I would plant

a tree for her: a small one, one she could care

for and water, one she could love. When the 

stench from the zoo bleeds at our feet,

we leave to our separate cars and drive

on long, twisting highways and cleft roads,

until we reach home. The air is dry like

the fog on cold mornings, and children

play in the shade of trees: big trees,

small trees.