Sonnet #2

Oh lovely fig, a sprawling dress, hides gems
Beneath a palm of leaves. I reach
Into her wrists and pluck from branch and stem
Apologized to my sweet friend, my tree.

 The sticky latex sap that is her blood
Weeps like puss from all of her lost thumbs
Her branches scratch, I stumble on her roots
She wept for wasps, deafmute and dumb.

It doesn't matter how I planted her in sun
I watered her in drought and fed her scraps
Ungratefully she spits at me now time has come
To take the price of rent on my fair patch.

The bitter heat, such shade below her eaves
The spiders there, the birds, the rotting leaves.