My favorite trees grow upside down.
I like to chop off their dangling roots
and toss them in a salt-water lake.
They float and bob in the waves
for a while, but the salt finally gets to them.
Sometimes I tunnel down to the tree top,
show it my old umbilical cord,
say, it’s one of your roots that touched the sky,
aren’t you glad? I return to the surface
and plant seeds, not returning for years.
Mother, father, this is what it’s like every day
when I know you’re close to dying
and I’ve not touched your faces since
I was born and I don’t remember that day
or why you left behind my umbilical cord.
