Katherine Gibbel

Send Nudes

My tree was the selfie stick, 
she became my wife. She bore

the everlasting honor of her foliage. 
Some evergreen wish: its violent hinge 

upon my desires. We were laurels 
of Parnassus. We were sports colleagues

and so of course we managed our intimacy 
with chalked-up hands. The locker room’s

its own kind of windthrown forest. In the screen 
my own lecherous reflection ogled me back:

the shocking fixity of my face. A river god 
like most other jackasses. How boughlike 

our arms flagged against the bark.

Send Nudes

I want to talk about the nakedness 
of trees. About seasonal decisions

not the moral of the story: if 
you marry you will turn into an oak

or a linden. Gander the town 
before it floods. For the picture

I posed as the whole myrtle alley 
purpling the history of the bois.

I’m the swan in the lake. I’m a Morisot 
painting. That faux fir feeling.

Knowing a thing won’t allow us 
to prevent it. I wanted just one pic

to outlast my memory of myself 
getting to know the grass.

When I gave up I was still 
a tree. And so were you.