The smell of the pine needles
and the plumes
of carbon dioxide

issuing
from my cavernous mouth
as I speak human words

each one trading
oxygen for carbon for oxygen
in an unspoken deal with the trees

mutual asymmetrical debt swap or
unasked web of photosynthetic
gift exchange

one might say; water and carbon
gas in the presence of
sunlight

yields oxygen as a by-product
trees variable in generosity according to leaf mass
(pines

are relatively ungenerous in this regard
due to their thin needles)
yet what the trees really want is sugar

and what I really want
according to the motivational theorists
is ‘recognition’

/

Simon Ravenscroft lives in Cambridge, England. He has published poems recently, or will soon, in Osmosis Press, The Penn Review, Apocalypse Confidential, Full House Literary, RIC Journal, The Alchemy Spoon, Swifts & Slows, Meniscus, Trampoline, Red Ogre Review, and other places. He is a Fellow of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge.