The Mulberry Tree

Vanessa Yang '21

EVERGREEN, NAOMI DEOKULE '21

The Mulberry Tree

Vanessa Yang '21

Last night I begged for a piece of your wretched heart that I could call my own.

I’ve told you already, I’m willing to quarter my Achilles and trade a cut

For a sliver of your aorta, a fair-square-done-deal all sealed up

In a cellophane sleeve. I know what I said and I don’t care, Vincent,

And I can’t and I won’t until you crawl inside my mind,

Flint my nerves into fireworks.

Last night I called my mother to tell her I did something bad.

I sold her sunflowers at a loss for the black flutes of a revolver

And now I can’t stop making eyes at the boy in the barrel.

When I fall asleep his box of bullets slips through my hands so these days

I sit alone on the grass outside and count my

Midnights one leaden prayer at a time.

The boy in the barrel has his hands braced against my forehead,

Whistles my name like a sick blue mantra, and

I’m sorry for everything I said when we were in love,

I’m sorry for Auvers and for breaking your empty yellow vases and for lying about Paris.

His whole body breathes like honeysuckle but

I won’t tell him that until he forks over his heart. I told you, Vincent,

Light me a little fire and I’ll paint you a church steeple.

Forget me, forget-me-not–; but

I told my mother you were fighting, my little white one-eyed warrior,

And she won’t let you forfeit without one more stomp on the gas,

One more glass of water

She thinks you have one more day, one more month, one more year

To spin the moon on your fingertips like we dreamed when we were twelve because she doesn’t

Get it, Vincent, and it’s not like you’re here to tell her

The flowers are dead.

So give me this.

I want a marble memorial and a plaster cast of your body so I can finally

Bury my blues inside something worth keeping. I lost the almond blossoms, the irises,

But after I fill a cast with my crazies I’ll finally have a home to call mine.

Then you can go to Normandy, to Paris, to Auvers-sur-Oise

And I will burn the mulberry tree.

Being lost is all you’ve ever needed

So give me something–;

Just this once.

The shell of a barrel boy, a whitefaced fossil.

A home for a vagrant, donning your creased brow like a crown.

Between the skeleton of my incomprehensibles and the armor of your skin,

I’m practically bulletproof, Vincent. Give me a try.

This will be home eventually.