April 6th

1.
I'm tired of you, Ginkgo biloba,
I'm tired of you. That's why you died out.
Because I was tired of you,
of your single room broken into many single rooms.
A doubled house, a house with two people in two single rooms
who touch against the same one wall.
I no longer care that there is someone else
pressed against the other side.
I’m tired of you, Ginkgo.

I’m tired of you, Ginkgo,
I’m tired of the people who touch the wall between them,
two people that touch the wall at the same time
and touch only a wall.
I’m tired of the way the wall feels, over touched.

I’m tired of you, Ginkgo,
as at times I’m tired of myself.
Tired of my leaf blade,
of being a sacred tree.

This is why you are extinct, Ginkgo biloba.
This is why. Because you never want to touch
or be touched.

2.
Ginkgo biloba you are the loneliest harbor.
I am tired of your delta shape, fanned
like a palm frond, like a palm
pressed to a wall.

Ginkgo you are the steadiest delta.
I am tired of no water moving,
like a snake would to escape its skin
or a body to escape a bed.

3.
Move along the water or in the empty
unloved air of your room.
Cough, throaty, deep in your chest.
Cough reverberantly. Cough a hollow sound.
Cough, Ginkgo biloba.

A ginkgo leaf pulled between my two thumbs
and my mouth pressed to it makes no sound.

So move through the hollows of your many rooms
like sound through an open mouth.