If only I were a dog I could have gone with—not that I’d ever want to be a dog. She could have taken me along anyway—I would have been good. As it is I had to wait at home, worrying. And apparently I was right to worry. She came in obviously depressed. She yanked off her clothes and yanked the covers off the bed and buried her head beneath the pillows.

Later she stirred enough to answer her phone. It was her sister.

Sister: How’d it go?

Lydia: Don’t ask.

Sister: That bad?

Lydia: Worse.

Sister: I’m so sorry. What happened?

Lydia: I don’t want to talk about it.

Sister: You’d didn’t get...? He didn’t...?

Lydia: A word of advice. Don’t ever date a poet.

Sister: Oh?

Lydia: Yeah. Like we were going for a walk. And the path was filled with fallen pollen. Fallen pollen. That’s kind of poetic, don’t you think?

Sister: Fallen pollen. I guess.

Lydia: Anyway, I said something about the pines are really weeping this time of year. And he said, “Fucking trees.” I thought maybe he was talking about actual sex. Tree sex. He wasn’t. He said, “My man Rush says the only worthwhile things about trees are what you can make out of them after you chop them down.” Something like that.

Sister: Jeepers.

Lydia: I should have said goodbye right then.

Sister: What happened.

Lydia: He went on and on about how the pollen was such a nuisance. I said, “Well, don’t you ever write poems about trees?” He said, “Fuck no. Too many already been written. I’d rather write about a toaster oven.” So we walked on a ways, and I wasn’t holding his hand any more. He said, “You like trees?” I told him I did. I told him one interesting thing about pine is it’s both a noun and verb.

Sister: Hey that’s right.

Lydia: I don’t know what made me think of it. I mused whether there were any other trees like that.

Sister: Like what? Oh, like both a noun and a verb. Are there? Did he know any?

Lydia: He gave me a funny look. I said, “Tree itself is both a noun and a verb. So is bark.” He scoffed. I added other tree words to the list. Flower. Blossom, root, stem, seed. He said, “Yeah, but those are just parts of trees, not the name of a tree.” I said, “I guess I’m stumped then.” I expected him to laugh. I don’t think he even got it.

Sister: Yeah, stumped. That’s funny. Did you come up with any more?

Lydia: I did. Twig. Branch. Bud. I told him bough, admitting it was a bit of a stretch. But I thought he might like it because of his man Rush.

Sister: Hey, that’s kind of neat.

Lydia: I thought so too. Poetic in a way. He scoffed. He said it was a stretch too far.

Sister: This guy sounds like a real loser.

Lydia: Tell me about it.

Sister: So then what happened?

Lydia: When we got out of the park, I told him I remembered I had to go home and feed my cat. Gosh, everything about him rubbed me the wrong way.

Sister: Well, you’re well rid of him.

Lydia: I am. I guess now I’d better feed the cat.

Sister: Okay. Say hi from me.

Lydia: I will. Bye.

But she doesn’t feed me. She just flops back on the bed. I think she might fall asleep. She sighs a couple of times. Then her hands go to her breasts. She sighs some more. Now one hand goes to her pussy. Two fingers slip between the lips. Stroke there for a while. Her hand goes back to her breasts. Her hips undulate. Her sighs become more urgent. Her belly bucks. Her cunt opens and closes, opens and closes. A touch of her milky sap appears. With each achingly beautiful orgasmic contraction, her sweet pink petals willow.

A guy with hard wood might well prefer
Pussy with or without pubic fur.
But, no ifs, ands, or buts,
All obsessed chest nuts
Will cop a feel to make pussy purr.

Poem by Ashley
Illustrations by Mat