the cork tree

The Cork Tree

The phellem oak, that stands alone where the road
bends north, has been debarked- or denuded- from
waist down; had it been bare-chested with cork pants
on it wouldn’t have been so bad, in Julies everyone
around here dresses like that, some wear even less.

Its flesh of is pale and slightly blue, but what can one
expect a January day, with hint of snow in the air and
a cold wind that brazenly prods its trunk. In five years
time the bark will grow back; since the plant lives to be
800 hundred years, a few naked years ain’t that bad.