Deconstruction Workers
I find you under the holly, become
a Christian sprig, I admit,
but then there is
a conversion of berries
into a kind lightning rod
that transfers electric
jolts to our genus. Linguists
of the shrub variety
make waxy a mate
to verdant. Green’s the grace
most of us would like. To miss
you netted by needles
is to have the foresight
of a wood pest, eating
what builders won’t abate —
blind. Termites
have the idea; they take
what’s hard to a
softer state. All
those amendments
that might be made: soaking
our structures with spit,
till the holly's left
hanging, anfractuous—
beams busting the house out of halves.
