The Shite Tree (after Lucia Perillo)

Most days I walk past a living oak --
over the bridge and past the canal.
It's been decorated with bags of dog shit

like a Christmas tree. It's a part
of the scenery. It's honest,
and like this hollow, tired feeling

I can live with it. I see the bags,
black, green, or blue striped,
Tesco branded --- all slung up there

as if a shrike has got confused
and made the wrong sacrifices.
I would love to write

about a shrike tree; to fixate
on separated sparrow heads.
Today there is a new bag, red,

strung up like an old heart
pumping arterial blood
to the root before sending a clot

somewhere vital. The low sun
shines through it; the breeze moves it.
Leaves nearby whisper with the heat

of summer on their lips, gold-fringed
and see-through. The ground
is bottle green, light dancing like it would

beneath a bridge over sun-speckled water.
And now there is a patch of blushed pink
like a cheek that's been kissed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/wjmlk4/_/ik1yl4s

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/wlt7we/slow_hot_death/ik203fy