then she wilts a little

there is a mulberry tree that sulks in the backyard
a little alien to these parts, maybe
but mostly because she never had any fruit
not last October, nor September
when they pried the FOR SALE sign out of the scanty grass.
she had nothing with which to shock
and that was the way she liked it,
cloaked between the ostentatious walnut,
the disreputable pine,
she could easily slip behind the scenery.
the tree didn't like the adolescent oak they
planted like a battalion front at her knees
doesn't anyone ever consider a tree's opinion?
anyways, she never entertained the thought of
another's growth. the sapling would have to wither
while she soaked up the soggy March sun in her
malnourished arms.

not a thought. and then, to deflower her from
the wall: mulberries! pieces of her forcing their
way into her small body as her new leaves
fell with the April rain in fluttery protest.
because newcomers should be planned
--which is why she disapproved of refugees,
whether it was a stray cat or little boy
running from Katrina's hyperventilation--
but May would soon make her more naked
than she had been in November,
adorned only in her own palpable errors.