Bardo

"Mayakovsky Tree, what's bardo?"

Squirrel leaves in his bole, singularly arranged and clever. Laid out wet, matted, silent. It's getting colder, squirrels' necks compressed and elegant, waiting to die.

"Just another reality," he said, leaning backward in the breeze. His leaves are pinched and translucent this weekend. "It's an intermediate state, Shimmy. Where we go when we think we are still alive."

"Like Colin Powell going to the U.N. on February 5, 2003, and lying about mushroom clouds?" I asked.

"You've seen the squirrels squeeze their foliage in my bole. I've watched you watch their courteous stomachs."

"Their narrow, delicious necks. Their depredatory feet."

He said, "Staring at the daily sun, people ask: 'How much do they cost, these little sunbeams?' But for a little patch of light jumping on the wall, you would give everything in the world."

"When the radiator turns on, it makes shadows between the floorboards," I said. I licked my unmitigable left arm. "The wind blows winsome fish from Lake Michigan through the screen windows. A jaded water-bug crawled up the wall this morning."

"Move back there, citizens!" he said. "The insect has fallen asleep. It has crossed its legs and wishes to rest. Our city may be justly proud of itself! Scientists and tourists will flock to us."