When he started blaming robberies
on trees, you knew for sure
something was wrong.

This man who clipped hair,
who spent years shaving the necks
of cafeteria managers,
sweeping lost curls down drains,
this man who said, “It is always better
to cut off a little too much …”

You could say he transferred
one thing to another when he came home,
hair to leaves, only this time
he was cutting down whole bodies,
from the feet up, he wanted
to make those customers stumps.

“This tree drops purple balls
on the roof of my car.
That tree touches the rain gutter.
I don’t like blossoms, too much mess.
Trees take up the sky.
It’s my light, why share it?”
He said thieves struck more
on blocks where there were trees.
“The shade, you know. They like the dark.”
You lived for days with the buzz of his chain-saw
searing off the last little branches of neighborly affection.

It was planting-season in the rest of the town
but your street received a crew-cut.
Two pecan trees that had taken half-a-century to rise
now stood like Mohawl Indians, shorn.
He gloated on his porch surrounded by amputations.
You caught him staring greedily
at the loose branches swinging over your roof.

Tomorrow, when everything was cut, what then?
He joked about running over cats
as the last chinaberry crashed,
as the truck came to gather arms and legs,
fingers waving their last farewell.

What stories did he tell himself,
this patriot of springtime,
and how did it feel to drown sprouting boulevards
with his bald bald heart?