Milkweed: The only proof I need Rebirth believes in poison Its bitter taste A gift you learn to survive To testify To those who learn too late Not to swallow Your alien affection This sole protection For one who cocoons to die For one who falls to rise In flamed and sooted hues In wings, not words Yet muse To monarchs without crowns Alit on silence now Still burning with memory Of where I once sought peace My kingdom come Thy will be done Oh, milkweed!

God killer Kept unaware Shielded from truth And your own reflection Braced against perfection As fragile as innocence To become something more In the eyes of my love Stealing time Speaking faith To defend The integrity of grace My greatest joy Become your deepest sorrow A heart broke open To the wonder of a world Worth saving Alone

We saw the sun together Yet I could not feel it My heart closed To the warmth my eyes knew A bud after bloom Set to seed A weed With promises not ready to be kept Made to flurry from your whispered wish False winter solstice Reborn a thousand times Face-blind Unable to recognize Your radiant memory in anything Save this sense That the south Bids me blush When it grows bright

She is my second language Yet he becomes my third When fighting for words Beyond her ken In his confession Of an instinct for grief Lacking synonyms Dismissing her youth As gardener in war Ancient warrior Defending truth That grows as he dies The depth in his eyes The language of this brother tongue A rose among thorns So sparse and silent The irises of his garden Long-tended Antonym for violence

Cry, mercy For you do not arrive in name But in disguise Never recognized For who you are Though serving yourself wholly In tears To seem weak While hiding the strength To disarm Our long-besieged sons Let them take you into their hearts That you might open their gates to surrender And destroy Any notion They were ever alone

You say grace has teeth To which I agree For my most cherished friends Have dandelion hearts Holding my thousand faults Close, like wishes, promises, Of a blest life and pride That they’re willing to let go of At the vulnerable whisper of my name

I bid you Know me nameless A familiar stranger With no history More curious than my affection Your story of me The beloved country Where my past has never dawned Where we can live unharmed Where I can stand sentry For a truth that won’t believe This mystery The death of who you see When you learn my name

His past loomed larger than his frame Barely a teen No longer sleeping When I heartlessly told him You grow while you rest And over a year He disproved this suggestion Growing To see me eye to eye So that he could look directly in mine When he said I hate you I no longer knew If it was his or her eyes He swore with and to But the wound was a badge of reluctant success Having walked the tightrope Of taught distance Between what he needed And who I was An estranged guardian Never daring full sun For my truth is the curse That missed his frame To hit me each time I see him again

Their warmest childhood memories Were made on family farms Perhaps why they paid more than most To buy our frozen ones Our mittened fingers numbed with cold Toes aching with disuse Seated under heavy blankets Still smelling of their beasts To sing our Christmas revelries On December’s winter sledge Through scarves embroidered with sharp frost These Belgians, faithful friends Bells ringing through the Onslow woods Snow gently falling down Until we turned the route to home Steeds speeding to the barn To stand and stamp their feet with us As we sipped chocolate cheer My parents’ pictures quickly snapped Their laughter warming with the fact Their children learned their rural past Ere we left yesteryear