Sometimes they cry, he says, staring
out the bay window. At first I think
he means my brother and me, that
he’s talking to our dead mother,
gone for seven months. Of course
we never cry, not in front of him
or really anyone. Then I recall he
only speaks to her in low mutterings,
the volume of intimacy and habit.
He’s talking to me about the trees,
the river birch he planted right before
she got sick again—trees he hated,
at first, their peeling skins a nuisance
when he mowed. I asked Tyler, he says,
naming a man I’ve never met, the
lawn guy who knows my father
better these days than I do. I picture
the two of them nodding at mulch,
shaking their heads at grubs. When
it gets hot, they take up water they
don’t need, cry it out. I let this sink in,
eye the stiff, cracking birch bark my
mother loved, their darkened trunks
a reminder that life is slow dying.
I lift my glass to the trees, nod in their
direction. I say good for them.