crotched

A THOUGHT struck him as he caught sight of a small crotched tree.

Mr. Kline also occasionally takes his materiality into metal, as in "Wounded Healer," a stainless-steel sculpture depicting a short piece of crotched tree limb from which two branches have been sawed.

From the double entendre in the crotched necessity of standing true / to her while pledging life and love to you to the moody repetition of this monster ledge / of granite under granite clouds, Leslie's language lingers in the mind and on the tongue.