Shinny

I was a boy myself once so don’t need
much told me about trees. I know to hide

in their boughs and filch their illicit fruit
before it falls to the ground and takes root.

I know to shinny up high then clamber
to where branches thin and the climber 

 feels a pit suddenly yawn in his guts,
up where twigs extend to buds, where height hurts.

Something about a tree doesn’t really mind
the theft of its fruit. A tree is resigned

to a boy swaying in his tenuous
crotch, dizzy at his chosen precipice.

Something about a tree wants to be climbed.
Something about a boy wants to climb it.