The Whipping Tree

it’s really just a stump
the stump of a sweetgum tree
but you can’t kill it
and we’ve tried to kill it
bleach and ax and fire and cairn

the shoots make great switches
and we harvest them according to the offense
three or four or five or more
my mother prefers that we strip all the leaves
leaving the node-bumps as stingers

except for the one tender leaf at the very tip
which flies away, an artistic touch,
on the first blow, the tiny green
falling
flag

of our defeated kingdom