The Switch

I sting and swell

It grasps a switch

A week's time it took to bend

back, and here again, the arm

Pointed at, commanding no army

Sweat in its elbow crease

My foot locked

Under tangled root

"Get up" says the stick

With a stomp to the spine

I wear the welts

Cuts stitched by needle in mouth

Bleeding stopped

"Look, look," it says,

"You're learning!"

Pick another and another

Thick branches

Tiniest twigs

A whole forest,

Trunks, naked

From the ground to the stars

Giant sundials marking its return

When the storm comes

Their arms will not catch the wind

Without greens, the trunk will die

I do not brush off the termites

or the carpenter ants that follow

the weathered hem of my jeans

Leaves and discarded switches crunch

Under feet approaching

It has to travel far, now, for whipping tools

"Which do you like?" it asks.

I tell it to go to hell.

"Knotted and dense,

Sticky with sap,

Straight as sin,

Or chewed by ants?"

I am learning. I am learning.

I tell it to give me the ants.

The air breaks and I cry out.

But I know something now:

The nest is built in hollow wood.