Ever since my birth,
her stretch marks
have caught my age
on sycamore skin.
If you were to
peel back her bark,
you could pin point
the years she spent
nurturing her saplings;
two fair oaks,
pitted like pine needles,
that ***** her fingers
every so often.
But she does not
weep like a willow,
she continues to give
her life away to raise them.

© Matthew Harlovic