Some Trees I Have Know

As one who bore me up,

and another who let you down,
O, Reese, childhood friend of mine --

We page through and
move on
even as a shadow of a stranger’s hand
has been proffered,
hovered over the text . . . as if it could know
whether your eyes
were brown or blue!  Or say what possessed you to
climb
that particular tree -- with its worm eaten branches, and flaking
bark --
on that day!

Or reach down
and pull you up from that watery grave twitching with stars . . .

Come, Reese, come instead
and climb this magnolia with me!