At the ripe age for plucking.
To be plucked
right off of this eligible branch.
But such a stem stays fixed.
Stubborn and stuck fast—
happy to be connected
to everything that makes me grow.
And others ask, they ask how
I can possibly remain
so incredibly unplucked.
And the others, I tell them,
my heart swells and breaks
with every breath and blink.
I dip it in the bright pools of
those slow-peeled grapefruit sunsets
and use it to finger
the bruised blue leftovers
of the time just before sunrise.
I air it out in the currents
of wish-made gusts from thousands
of floating dandelion seeds,
and I stitch its holes shut
with scraps of  mother thread
left behind by moth-eaten fates.
Every day, all over again,
between beats, I learn to ****
the poison from it
with my own lips,
so it can swell and break
at its very own pace.
I remain unplucked, I say,
so when I find a soul
that matches mine,
he won't have to teach me how.