I.
How the tree was made blue under the canopy:
in the moon’s air and water, or, painted blue.

There is no shape more tree-like than humans
thinking to shape it. The tree

hollows as bright canoes
spooned out of bark. What is the white-person

equivalent of a tree? It is a tree
so blue even in daylight,

insisting it’s been there all along
II.

We watch a movie on my phone. The headlights

too, dim and dusty, project an old film
on the road, something we hadn’t seen before.

Trees grow blue in the dark. Write me
poetry. Okay. The text balloons in the sky.

Atmosphere keeps our mouths in place
as geese-lake-water sweeps into shape: temple, then prayer.

The bayou around an iron pipe cups a great blue
heron. The wing is ink-smudged.

Fall is a place too. We sit in a cavity
playing a game where we lose all the words in hand

and win. We play a game where we grieve everything

left in the road.
III.
I want you to write me a poem instead. For me

the light in the road, thinned and moving.
I want to be the Michigan sun,

brief but possible. Before the harming and being
harmed. I know there is suffering

in the world, I know it. I know
we don’t go here often, but can I be in the mouth this time?