Two Poems

The Thorn and the Grass

That day I ran my fingers over my son’s knee
and they slowed as if puzzled by a sudden patch
of hardness where the skin thickened and pulled
me back to trace the contour lines around it. And there
in the middle of his soft flesh that black pin prick
puncturing his creamy skin and my fingers pressing
down on the ridge around it and us watching as a tip slowly
emerged, pushing its nose up into the air. So I pressed
a little harder and this great thorn slid out of his knee,
the unmistakable curve of a rose thorn freed from his flesh.
But then what about the grass, shall I make her the grass
that grows in the cold sand high above the beach,
blown sad and sharp by the wind, swishing her blades
from side to side, waiting for him to run through her?



So Many Houses
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