Select the Lover With the Worst Therapist

Stop me if I've told you

this one before, but when

my dad was a kid

his father took him

and his two siblings

to their lakefront property

in the Adirondacks every summer.

One year, in the late 1950s

or maybe it was in the early 1960s

when rope was more common 

than ratchet straps

a strong gust of wind rose

and blew their rowboat off the roof

of the family station wagon

while crossing a bridge

on northbound Interstate 87

en route to the mountains.

It crashed down into the valley

below and they kept driving

hoping that no one had been injured.

It could have been one of two bridges

and one of two ravines

just south of Cairo, New York.

I'm not sure which ones

since I was only a kid 

when my dad told me

as he took me to the Adirondacks

each summer that I choose to remember 

before those water rights

were sold to the highest bidder

but it's not

and never will be

my story to tell.

Enough about that, though.

Thanks for not stopping me.

How was your Monday?

It's All in the Wrists

"But Sir, we can't get

them all out

in time."

How does one choose?

[Vague explosions.]

"Sir? Sir!"

One doesn't.

[Static.]

The Rule Book's in the Mail

For several days

my morning commute

was shoving your favorite

tree down my throat

into these tarnished lungs

where it mixed with smoke

before that heavier merge.

I understand now

why you like it best.

Deciduous and round

its roots reach north and south

from that interstate median

for a way under the pavement.

It's not the most majestic

but rather, if a spaceman

one thousand years from tonight

were to summon the ancient archives

in search of the meaning of "tree"

that's the image that'd appear

on the screen affixed to his wrist

whereas mine, though unidentified

is leaning somewhere 

out over a river, its trunk protruding

from a split in stone left by glaciers

defying gravity and statistics

a tattered rope tied to a limb

that's held the weight of children

for generations

and most importantly

not yet found

by the one 

I still must protect.