The View from the Fourth Branch

The 'No Trespassing' sign is nailed to the oak

behind the grocery store where the asphalt ends.

I looked at the boughs and felt a sudden choke

of a memory where the height of a body depends

on the strength of a diamond-patterned bark

pressing its geometry into the arches of my shoes.

I remember the climb before it got dark,

when the sky was a color you didn't have to choose.

I washed the sap off my palms in the sink,

sticky and sharp like a badge of old pride.

It’s been twenty years, but it makes me think

of the person who used to have nothing to hide.