by Erin Croy
I thought I said love. Maybe
I said death.
I have only been speaking
this incomprehensible language now
nearly three decades. Maybe longer.
It is worse than German.
I should grow used
to it like the tree along my street
with three split tops. It could not decide
which sun to go toward. You do not know it;
you have never been here.
I think it is a blue spruce
like the one I was taller-than, then
not-taller-than, in my parent's yard, because the needles have a blue cast
like a heart.
Do you understand me
if I say when you broke
all those dishes,
I would have minded neither
the shards in my back,
nor the scars?
I have had some thoughts this morning.
I said death.
I have only been speaking
this incomprehensible language now
nearly three decades. Maybe longer.
It is worse than German.
I should grow used
to it like the tree along my street
with three split tops. It could not decide
which sun to go toward. You do not know it;
you have never been here.
I think it is a blue spruce
like the one I was taller-than, then
not-taller-than, in my parent's yard, because the needles have a blue cast
like a heart.
Do you understand me
if I say when you broke
all those dishes,
I would have minded neither
the shards in my back,
nor the scars?
I have had some thoughts this morning.