The Trees The Trees

The Trees The Trees sparked a spectacular collage of imagery in my mind that I wanted to bring to life through movement. Each of the piece’s vignettes is built on a poem from the book, inspiring a mélange of scenes rooted in the everyday and sprinkled with fantastical, heart-punching moments. —Robyn Mineko Williams

The Trees The Trees
Words: Heather Christle

CONDO

microwave doubles as a nightlight this is that other song the one that likes to sing itself and stops microwave has a note a chord strikes as light strikes you can’t sleep in it you might want to defrost this hunk of beef I thought figuratively there was no beef there was refrigerator I usually misspell refrigerator spell-check this hunk of beef microwave what you rearrange is everything that’s where the heat a form of fright comes from welcome to Miami came the song from in the stroller way down inside the stroller sang the man inside the baby

THE ACTUAL FUTURE

I am a handbag I am the kind of handbag nobody weeps into except for when I went to the ten-year reunion then everyone wanted to weep into me because we have no jobs and we have no health insurance so also we can’t have any babies now I’m going to talk about the future of my peer group the actual future when I turn into a human and have to take vacations to weep into myself

I HIGHLIGHTED YOUR PARTS

life is very easy you just have to memorize it in advance like this morning you put on your watch the wrong way for a moment that was a brilliant stroke so small so human you just have to know your behavior and execute it like love like reaching down to pick up a bullet and then no one ever tells you where it’s from everything lies down and waits its turn this house the van the mast your private kidney it’s March 18 a Tuesday right away the phone neglects to ring

THESE PEOPLE ARE GETTING TOGETHER

a woman and a man are on the bench the bench is vibrating and the trees and purses that which does not vibrate falls apart the dead also vibrate the woman and the man are still alive I think I know a lot about the world when the man says he will fix dinner he does not mean he will repair it and winning is one object of the sun there is no good way to draw smoke compared to smoke bench is real life real life keeps hills piled up behind it a bench is in memory of the dead sometimes a choice is needed to pick the door and not the doorway the woman makes an offer the man forgets to vibrate and promptly falls apart

WHAT WE HAVE WORKED FOR

you were holding me when the tulips collapsed we had not given them the water I was holding the water in my hands and you were holding me when I fell to the wavering ground and for the tulips were are not sorry oh no we’re not sorry at all the water is clean and warm and sustains us up to our knees any moment now we’ll start to blossom my head will crack open and fall through your hands oh hands cannot keep anything together pretty baby oh it beats me why we try

(Octopus Books, 2011)