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Poop-Smellin’ Tree
I wonder if it was a joke
she meant to play on me,
the poop-smellin’ tree,
planted by Lydia too close
to our front yard Maple (said
the neighbor) for both to thrive.
I complained in public enough
that someone offered to take it
down for me; in truth it smelt
of semen, the flowering funk
of human seed come to fertilize
my dour front yard each spring.
When we divorced, she left,
I kept the house, but once
months after, she walked
around it and the perimeter
of the backyard fence
touching things, snatching
The bloom from the single-rose
bush, banging on siding, wanting it,
if no longer hers, then ruined.
Was she planted too close to me?
Did she harvest herself one sorry night
so I’d thrive like the Maple, still standing,
Whirring its helicopter seeds
into the cracked driveway, hopeful
that its sad little babies might
take root and grow, like the babies
we made together took root to grow,
passing beyond her, each spring?
Steve Henn is the author of three poetry books: American Male, Guilty Prayer, and Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year. He teaches high school English in northern Indiana. More at therealstevehenn.com.