When broken, rebuilt
are entirely new children-
the people we play
the ones we remember from a story or memory
in their shiny, forming hearts
like ghosts beneath the fingernails
we scratch at when there is an itch
on the brow, of fathers
tender of mothers and their dreams
even when splintered from unkindness/
it is the mantle of yesterday, of those
we have loved and not our own
dreams and hope. And see,
when broken and like a child
again, so spectacularly
a life kinder than once known-now
we could be brave
flowers are on
the table because we remembered
to walk to the garden every weekend/coffee
brews on Saturday morning
little feet already rushing under the sun.
My heart,
does a war rage outside
the bedroom window? Are the people
who wage it Kind Folk?
I want to ask for a reprieve tell the ants
making their way up the picnic basket, I
will be back tomorrow, cross
my heart.
When I blow upon my own hand
dust in the dim light is like
starshine/and so,
I look to no other. The children
receive our debt/ and the
debt we have paid
like lit paths we must have left
forging through the longer
nights, even when we
are still children.
