Break

Bone scrapes along black pavement
A crack and disconnection
Wrap me up in your fiberglass embrace
A smothering protection
What lay beneath my concrete cast
Is a crushed collection
Of bone, muscle and raw nerves
A joint without its flexion
I pick the gravel out of my knees
A week after inspection
But all the while my body still
Is beginning a resurrection
Mending the splintered bones and scars of
Absolute broken perfection.

Knotted Hands

There’s a dusty dollhouse in the basement.
A birthday present for a grandniece
you knew was too young to know the value.
You made it with your hands,
Hands that used to know the wood.
Many growth rings later,
I wonder if you have forgotten how.
Do you miss the roar of the ban saw
or the rhythm as you whittled?
Your knuckles contorted,
branches twisting upward.
My favorites were the tulips
that fit in my small and clumsy hands.
You made them for Aunt Virginia.
I haven’t seen them since she passed.
Ash trees to ashes.
Sawdust to dust.
Hands that once bent nature,
Now Nature bends and leaves dusty,
like the dollhouse in the basement.