Matthew Henriksen

Chuckle Wood

Harboring sweetness as long as the grin can last
I spoke with trees derelict in their grief
I spoke of nothing as they breathed the sky
in and out of their empty lungs Their spines
in meditation on their own weight weighed
less than the sky but more than the sun or less
at least than thoughts of sky which trees like people
cannot have Thoughts that is can leave us breathing
back against ourselves our rusted innards iron wheels
turned red in fields as if the sun were salt
and the rain were time itself Derelict
I tell the tress because what else but rhyme
can sound this silence out and who but those
who silence nothing to hear what words I won’t say

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Matthew Henriksen was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1977. He was the author of Ordinary Sun and The Absence of Knowing, both published by Black Ocean. He died in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 2022.