Cordon Sanitaire

The shade blights oppressive suns.
Here, in the shadow, the ultraviolence is powerless.
Yes, the blight infects. The bark creaks where only pricked for sap,
and the stem is mangled.
But
there is no Other.

That insurgent sky retreats from the ground
(along the rent runs the rain)
in shelter and mold.

The blight envelopes the grown as their real estate envelopes —
and nestles spry maggots like a cradle
away from the scorch
of the extraterrestrials that would invade

the Self.
 
We will persevere
in every blight of skylight —
in will and command.

The blight drives the American chestnut, full of holes —
holey,
to the shoots
leaving people to the open.
Peeling our skin beneath a labeled void,
we cling to a living shade of roots and the rust.