When I was young I pretended the trees could talk

and so I pressed my cheek to their furrowed trunks
paused—breath bated eyes fixed.

Nothing, only the rain and my mothers voice calling me inside.

Eight summers later I wound up in a park with you, watched you peel off
yellow leaves clinging to the soles of your shoes.
It was the first time I'd been kicked quiet.
shh, do you hear the robins?
The thrumming,
tiny hearts hammering tucked inside tiny chests.

You smile when you find my fingers pummelling tables and lampshades, trying to mimic their beating wings.

I wonder if you know—gingko trees date back two hundred million years.
Two hundred million, could you imagine?
But at the first frost, the canopy falls.
All of it, all at once.

Look, what I'm trying to tell you is I spent the summer with my ears pressed against branches,
following your finger notice the rustle of the deer, the fall of the water.
Look, it's going to be winter and I know because I was under a tree and all of a sudden there were a million yellow fans brushing past my face,

and Look, that's how I fell for you.
Not unsteady, not slow—certain and staggering and suddenly, there.