the stump

  From my grandfather’s tin lunch pail

  he fingered the stick of dynamite

  taken from the mine and now out of sight,

  ready to be lit and wail.

  He selected his victim with care,

  an ancient cathedral-like stump

  with defaced roots and twisted rotting bumps;

  he planned violently to tear

  through the roots and fleshy dry bark

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  with liquid fire, black bomb powder.

  He waited impatiently to try his power.

  The first silence was stark

  as he struck the fuse, knowing that

  his wife was at church and would not

  stop his scheme; he couldn’t be caught.

  Fire breathed, he drew back, sat

  waiting for the flight of this tree’s

  corpse, an explosive funeral,

  an image both strange and visceral.

  Powder shattered the breeze

  when the dynamite blew it up,

  the proud stump billowing toward

  the lake where two fishermen, who swore

  silently, threw enough

  of themselves out of their old boat

  to avoid strange death from above

  as the plundered, airborne stump broke in rough

  waves around the floaters.

  They plunged back into their small craft,

  not bothering to reel in their lines

  as they paddled off with oars of white pine.

  My grandfather just laughed.