To Poem Inside Darkly

Hand-grasping, the branches
ends bud. Pustules of red along
the grey-brown bark.
The leaves are late, into the cruelest
month, only stems. They remind
me of Morticia in the show who used
to cut off bulbs admiring the sticks
and the perked pink thorns’ tips.
Her slick black dress bottom fronds like roots.
Her foreign lover, an amalgam of Latinates’ tongue.
Is this tree from here? Is it a transplant from a ship
a gale pillowed to shore? Was there oak before?
Or is this ash? An ample tree in summer full of living blood.
Her squirrel squirrels a nest of discarded, crisp oil wraps.
Framed like this, here the weeping willow further away seems
to enjoy the absence of us breathing underneath.
It’s small greens growing. Why not my arbor or its ivy? Am I to blame?
I talk to it through panes and it waits, for me to leave, but I don’t.
Plague envelopes, my carbon, damask velvety cloak.