Manzanita

There’s this dead branch poking from

the manzanita tree out back, long and dusty

and gray where the rest is deep and red

I know I should get out the old chainsaw

and cut it clean off, the tree

would heal around it, scar up, become tough

push out new branches, higher, pink in

infancy growing thick and red as the

rest of the tree but there’s something

inside that holds me back and I 

wonder if it isn’t more beautiful

because of it’s dead than it would be

without it.