Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’
Lying hymn-barren on the dirt floor, loopy
in the leaflight, I thought I thought well of myself.
I smoked a cigarette beneath the weeping beech
we called King Tree, dreamt
a grove grown for coffinwood.
Pain journeyed from my stomach riding an armored horse.
Vines grew around my neck.
The world was worse wherever I was.
Copyright © 2022 by Chase Berggrun. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 8, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.