Young Gymnocladus dioicus stems with leaf scars visible.
My fingers press on these cold keys and shed
bits of skin too small to see. The wind presses,
too, slips through gaps in the window casings.
A busy wind, chilling my hands while ripping the
last of the winter abscission hold-outs on down.
Leaves shed, dropping off and piling, so slow to
dance. The scars on stems. (I search for the faint
scar on my ring finger, when I took a dull knife and
tried to cut a walking stick from a red osier. The knife
slipped, I cut myself—the shed blood, my red sap,
made payment then, payment now, for the poem.)
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