notes for a poem

my mother says sometimes
she's so angry she rips her hair out
i wonder what made the trees so angry
they'd rip their arms out
maybe they just got tired of holding
all those leaves.

summer thunder left branches
all over
a thousand awkward limbs,
broken, the white insides
revealed through brown-gray skin
like Leo Thomas's shin bone in third grade,

the doctor took Leo's shin bone
and tucked it back into his leg,
wound it up in plaster and fabric
to heal

the men in green shirts came this morning,
bright orange buzzsaws and flatbeds.
the mess is gone,
but you can see where the trees point
the remnants of their fingers at you.

you, who cannot hear their crying
or bandage their stumps.