Driving around town, I mistook
a young saguaro for a girl
in a green jumpsuit, hitchhiking.
Fuckin’ geriatric eyes! I don’t believe

in the soul. I do believe, to paraphrase
Ed Abbey, “sentiment without action”
rots your soul. What’s left of my soul
& I camp out in the heart of this
200-year-old cottonwood, the last
of the grandmother trees still standing
in the path of the new border wall,
her sisters chainsawed into trash.

I’ve got water & enough trail mix
to last a week, rope, a harness,
my old jack knife & hard rubber
climbing spurs for scaling the trunk
when the agents of the state, their gloves
sparking, arrive to arrest me. I smile,
imagining them chasing this aching
grandpa body up through the leaves
& into the unbelievable, breathable air.