The Last Trees in Slab City

who remembers trees when air was free from fares guiltless tankless unassailable cliches of rustling leaves enchanted forests infanticidal practices like nestling newborns atop boughs cordate declarations etched beneath oak bark and canary sashes as dead as concrete blocks and the nearest approximation is a toy broccoli flower wire wools welded for steel topiaries laud the arboreal knights growing figments stalking the future with whom was shared breath and hearth in Slab City