Bonsai
Cut a branch from an old tree
that will die if left in nature
and plant it in a porcelain pot
as shallow as a boy’s torso.
Nail the branch into the soil
for thin roots to sprout into the medium
that will sustain but not nourish it.
Wire each leaf into the desired position.
Strip the bark, entwine the trunk,
and clip the branches
so that the tree
does not grow,
does not reach its natural form,
so that it survives
perfectly independent from its source,
a half-living synecdoche
for a thing dead a hundred years,
immortal
through the violence of poetry.