If I Were a Poet

I picture the whiteness of your face,
the scent of the wood just an inch away.
These trees grew for 50 years,
having no language, they never made a sound.
And then they were cut down to make this box.

Someone called the office just after you sped off into the rain,
worried that you would be late for our dinner.
You would be infinitely late.

Now there’s the metallic scream of a crane lowering a box,
positioning it exactly over your new home,
and dropping it into the mud.

Maybe I imagined it,
but I swear that when the box fell to the earth,
it didn’t make a sound.