Ambient Desperation

by Michael DuBon

Copyright ©2026

Oh little trees, medium trees, and big trees,

do I beseech can you please send a message 

to my love to come 

back to me, please 

just drop her a line 

on the televine. 

Yet all patience abandoned in the face of silent

leaves, I stroke relatively soft birch flesh,

imagine your strong legs. Sooner still 

I tongue a puckered knot 

tasting your lips; my hand 

massages the back

of your smooth trunk as I lick 

and kiss and lick and kiss. 

Though my hump is erratic,

arhythmic, a little too desperate,

and I slam dick first into the hard 

bark, and it seems I am some grail 

king after all. 

For the sake of my fetal position

bal–heart, please Japanese maples, dahlias, 

silver grass, fuschia, hydrangea, and all the rest,

please send this message to her on the televine

that I am not not missing her,

that I am not not in love with her,

That I would not not take her back in an instant–

yes, say it just like that so she doesn't think I'm desperate.

A pinecone falls always 

in the middle distance on days like these.

About the author:

Michael DuBon is a first-generation U.S. citizen of Guatemalan descent and a first-generation college graduate. He is the author of the poetry collection Fragilidad y Free Dissociation (Girl Noise Press, forthcoming 2027), and his work has been nominated for Best of the Net. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Meadow, The Museum of Americana, and Shine Poetry Quarterly, among others, and his creative nonfiction has appeared in The Plentitudes, Heartwood, and Under the Gum Tree. He holds an MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California and an MIS from Southern Utah University, and he works as a tenured English professor at Everett Community College. He also serves as a board member at large for WTAW Press. At his most natural, he is laughing and smiling like no one is watching—mostly because even his cat is over it and napping in the other room.