It stands

making

some kind of defiant disclosure.

Trousers of stark, cold black if stripped, a stark,

cold impotency

of a fifty foot inhale.

Choked right at halfway

cause it gives nothing back

in air time.

Limbs just wail

and fall from an afternoon breeze.

Brought back by the chestnut

bark, and green tea leaves

of many splendor, sporadically

bench warming the space.

Surrounding

the ugly duckling

these gladiators of light

and elements

are proud when healthy.

Claiming a right

to be like a leaning tower of Pisa

until fully zapped

of any more chlorophyll blood.

Not causing

the whole scenario

to be ruled by a closed vision

of taking up useless space.

Or just dropping

nicely into number two pencils

one by one,

as if they were leaves

in transition.