[Gail White]

For Two Lindens Newly Planted on Avenue D


Surrender now, you haven’t got a chance—
between the flood of piss from every cur
that cocks a leg, the daily whipped offense
of bike chain lacerations, the errant car
that jumps the curb to gall a tender strip
from you; and box-cutter boys who deface
your trunks, the burning road-salt I.V. drip
of winter, the corner cuchifrito place
dumping its fry-pot grease by night, your spread
festooned with deli-bags, and groping shorn-
off limbs where trucks backed in to unload beer.
Should you survive the year, you anguished pair,
then prove us snags all wrong—the standing dead—
fly pale green flags, this desperate April morn!