There is a tree growing over your grave
that has no Latin name.

I have trawled the web,
read textbooks of botany and dendrology,
consulted field guides,
described to dumbfounded arborists
its leaves, neither pinnate or palmate
and shown them its crown,
a soft, trembling mushroom cloud—
but was only given a knife
to cut it down.

The bark is skin-soft
against the whorl of my ear
as I sit cross-legged in shade,
carving questions into the trunk
until an errant wind
sends a handful of blossoms into my lap,
white and delicate like crumpled tissues,
and I smell antiseptic, porridge
and your lipstick.

My hands are stained with your sap,
but I wrap the flowers carefully
between your birth and death certificates,
wind waxed linen around the wounds I made
and promise to water you,
Elizabeth,
until you are the tallest gravestone in the cemetery.