IF TREES COULD TALK

Some believe that even skeletons
communicate with one another 
through entangled fiber optic roots,
 
the drought’s dead-standing oaks
shedding dry limbs and bark
in random piles at their feet.
 
Sometimes I hear them screaming
in the evening of day and night
as gravity pulls at sagging arms
 
of decomposing silhouettes 
frozen with fright—a slow agony
I am too old to ignore.