Dismantled

We return from the surgeon,
a welcome window of sunlight slanting
across the neighborhood.
“Look at that!” my husband says.
Across the street, a man is strapped 
high on the denuded trunk of a cedar. 
A chainsaw dangles from 
his waist. Below him, just out of view,
a stump grinder roars.

We don’t have trees like these at home,
centuries thick, wide as a storm. 
Trees are the lungs of the earth, 
exchanging carbon dioxide 
for the oxygen we need.
I make my husband a sandwich --
turkey on sourdough --
as he sits on the porch
watching.

I have hardly left his side since the
diagnosis, but I cannot join him here.
A scalpel may soon carve into
the shrine of my Beloved’s body.
I remind myself the diseased lung
must go to spare his life. 
Poison will drip into his cedar 
strength in hopes that chemo kills the cancer 
before it kills the rest of him. 

How can I possibly listen to chainsaws, 
a grinder, the shouts of woodcutters 
as piece by piece 
a life is struck down?

Photo courtesy David Lyndahl, Unsplash