An Argument about a Tree

Debra Bruce

She's never had a garden in her life,
this daughter here, but thinks she knows enough
about trees to tell him it's an elm.
He knows it's not an elm. The trunk's not rough
enough, he tells her, tugging at a lip
of bark, then stepping back to scan the crown.
Listen-he knows his trees, and flowers too.
Back home he had to cut his sick elms down
one spring, the spring his pin oak bulged and broke
the bench he'd made to circle it. Their rosebush-
only he knew how far back to trim,
or how long one low rose would take to push
open. They walk the six blocks back, heat
from concrete rising around her high-rise
and cicadas grinding their whines higher,
higher. He doesn't like to criticize
his children's lives. No matter where they go
he'll always visit and only once left,
still bitter, under a white summer sky.
It's better just to keep things to yourself.

A bright book hits the table with a slap-
Trees of the World. After she leaves for work
he closes his eyes, trying to see the tree.
Maybe he'd better have another look,
he thinks, carrying the book six blocks back
to where they stood a little while ago.
It's an elm. The words crawl up into his chest.
Ulmus. Elm. Why didn't he know?
He hears his heart, he feels himself skid down
a steep slope. No. He's on level ground.
He's here, on a city's grid where daughters glide
along macadam in their compact cars.