Tree Legs

I have peculiar bark on my long tree legs,
it grows in layers.

When I was eight, I was a fresh baked apple pie.
My mother never told me why, but I know
it was because of the tears.

My tree legs drank them every day,
while mother explored my cold sweats.
She picked them off my forehead with
smiling fingertips. Eager for discovery!

She poked through my warm crust, straight to my soft apples,
spoiling my fruit,
rotting them with her murky breath.
I was an apple pie

until the world never died.
I realized, at that precise moment,
that I was a foul smell;
putrid. I had dried up and crumbled.

There was nothing left for me but
these long, strong tree legs….

and bark.

The Wedding

Undercover
whispers about size
and
the rice.
What will we do with the rice?

Crowded family ties.
Lines of sweaty
palms
caked with
white rice flakes.

My stems, baked
in
sun beams, waiting
for a gleam of
approval.

Shape came easy.
Like he did.
Before and
after the rice.