Tree Tree Tree

There's that game we play:
Repeating a word until it ceases to mean

and it holds itself upon its sound

as if leaves and leaves and green and trunk
were not the end of this tree.

Meanwhile there is the ring in our ears, and

tree and tree have become a forest.
Trees give nothing, not even sound.

Our tongues make branches move.


“Tree Tree Tree” from Odalisque in Pieces by Carmen Giménez. Copyright © 2009 by Carmen Giménez. Reprinted with the permission of The University of Arizona Press.