molluscs raze our tree, the one i chose for us, was split in two by lightning or wind or something worse. i watched two children climb the wreckage of all that history we never got to feel move through our mouths, and it made me want to scream until my voice gave out. i didn't make a sound. it was different at home. the trees that got the worst of it didn't belong to me. not that anything really does. i found a broken arm with serrated skin in the back yard. what used to be an elbow was wedged between the wet earth and a picket stripped from a friend of the family. a soldier that fell so this fence could be made. i unpinned it and gave it a better place to rest. on a brick beneath the carnage, a pair of snails drew warmth from each other — two landlocked lovers throwing darts at a map of the only country worth living in. 220904 what's it to you? who go blather from