There are broken things
I can never fix—
even though
I’m older—
no matter
how much I know,
my hands are still wounded green
with Spring’s earth—
from even before I knew
the pain of destruction—or
the chaos of a single lie
(before I knew it was a lie)
when I was crawling on sunset
in the tall grass
of our backyard,
silently following
my brothers
(newly jaded)
as they joked in spite
about our mother’s volatile shouts
from our sky blue house
of loose and spurring rage.
