We held the broken tree limb in our hands, which is how we had been waving it, madly, in the woods. We picked it up and whipped it around like a flag with no unfurling, full of energy and fervor. We walked along the path, whipping poison ivy and pointing to the birds scattering.
On a turn, it wrapped against a tree trunk, and broke, and now it was just a piece of its former glory.
No mind, we broke it again,
and put the smallest piece in our pockets,
remembering what might have been.
