Reclining Piñon

The piñon reclines parallel to earth like Manet’s Olympia—

stark, of service, sturdy, propped up on her own stripped limbs.

A full length of bark has died along the south side of her trunk,

left her core exposed, sun-bleached. The north side is rich

with thick bark, pulling life from roots still clutching arroyo wall.

Unlike Olympia, she is not bored when I, a john of sorts,

stand before her. She doesn’t care I am mixing metaphors

in the attempt to get out of my head, into my old body.

Above, green needles spread across a low canopy I can sit beneath.

Like a child on a still swing, I could perch on the horizontal trunk,

clutch branches like two cold chains, kick my legs to nowhere, pretend

this is a bonsai and I am so much smaller than I am. I could

rub against its cave of hard roots, half exposed, shed my tube of skin,

leave a transparent face dangling in the gentle wind.