The Oak Tree Speaks

Raising a baby in NYC… is like growing an oak tree in a thimble.
―Manhattan Mini Storage Billboard

Do you know how many ways there are to die in this city?
1. Speeding taxicab.
2. Open manhole cover.
3. The man breathing so heavy at the bus stop.

When I was a teenager, the boy I loved would pay a homeless
guy ten bucks to buy him the cheapest bottle in the liquor store.
My love sucked the glass ‘til his teeth were marbles. Rolled
himself down the subway stairs, hopped into the tracks. Waited.

4. Jealous wife.
5. Brooklyn Bridge.
6. Fire escape.

Only once, he let it get so close I screamed. I had never made
that kind of sound before. He turned, his face a prayer wheel
atop his neck, a smile so foreign I could not speak its language.
Like water running in reverse, he spilled himself up to safety.
When the train hurricaned past, the fist of air rattled my branches.

7. Rooftops, all of them.
8. The barroom brawl.
9. The West Side Highway.
10. The wrong street corner.

In New York, when a tree dies, nobody mourns that
it was cut down in its prime. Nobody counts the rings,
notifies the loved ones. There are other trees.
We can always squeeze in one more. Mind the tourists.
It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live there.

11. Disgruntled coworker.
12. Central Park after dark.
13. Backpack through the metal detector.
14.
15.
16.

For years, we wouldn't watch movies where they destroyed
New York. The aliens never take Kansas, we joked. They go straight
for the heart. Poor Kansas. All corn fields and skyworks. All apple
pie. Nobody to notice if it’s missing. Just all that open space to grow
in.