The trees are upside down. I’m sure of it. Sure of it. The leaves tickle the sky, shades of ruby and caramel and gold. Too high to touch. The sun bites them. Birds on ground branches. Ground branches, no longer in the ground. No longer buried in soil, nor tucked. Instead, they bear the weight of birds who prod and poke and use the tree's severed limbs for shelter, for warmth. Upside down. The branches—the real ones—are lopsided. Where the ground branches should be. Too big. The ground can’t swallow them all; some branches crane, contorted in confinement, dried from lack of sunlight. They writhe. I’m sure of it. The trees are wrong wrong wrong. Unsound. I am not upright.

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