Cole calls the ironwood a guest.

Brought to the desert fifty years ago,

it thrives now under the pink light.

"Not like a smoketree," dying at every

wrong altitude, folding in wind.

Our eastern ironwoods are sturdy, too,

local and plentiful. We like

their muscular skins, bud-browned after winter.

Once I tried to carve our names on one

behind the pigpen saying shit shit

as my knife flaked at tree cells. Insignificant.

What fool tries to write on ironwood?

And failing that, who dreams

the A and A of lovers on a tree?

You want the truth? When I saw

Cole's ironwood I dreamed you

and a forest of tough and heavy trees.

I dreamed the whitetail browsing there and

how I laughed to hear how

ironwood rots when touching ground.

I dreamed a tree and both of us admiring it.