maybe the second book  
isn’t about the tree rot  
formed into the virgin 
Mary shape people

in town prayed to but
that it’s gone & though 
it feels recent isn’t 

they uprooted it so long  
ago there is grass where  
it was already yellowing 
in miserable summer 

but that’s okay it can still 
be about what my poems 
are always about one thing  

taking the place of the other  
not as well and forever 
there are dead Greeks 
who knew this as old 

and yet I run into it 
each time like I am  
a cartoon and when I crash 

I will barrel through  
making a long hollow tunnel  
of myself through which 
on the other end the sun 

can set the moon  
can rise sad songs can  
play & credits can roll