Kitty Carpenter: She Kindly Stopped

Even the cedars along the highway
are diseased, each tree
split down the middle
half brown, branches bare
and dry as finger bones,
the other half
still green as ever
as if Death were interrupted
halfway through, her work
calling her somewhere
more urgent. Perhaps
the diseased branches
of someone’s lungs
were filling,
filling
and she had to swing by,
offer a hand
to stop the drowning.