Pruned

(This is the first poem I ever spontaneously wrote, in Fall 2017)

Pruned

Figurine trees pose in the college yard,

unclimbable,

unfurling branches just above human reach,

ungraspable.

Today I studied one, circling softly,

squirrel mind loud,

searching for those subtle stairs which only

simians sense.

They should be there; instead, there’s only stark

featureless bark

and dead gnarled nubs, wooden belly buttons

where life could be,

neutered for our fear that they’d hump our air,

harmless freedom.

Or perhaps it was for fear we’d arouse

our own freedom,

foolishly climbing by free will, fleeing

the godlike shears.

But even those amputated limbs stay

as stumps unscaled,

for the true pruning leaves no trace but a

bare, “perfect” trunk,

pared before memory, natural or

unnatural?

While stuck there to the ground, somewhere in me

unplaceable

stirred an old ache for stolen potentials

and, now tender,

I felt the searing stings of phantom limbs

cauterizing.