With thanks for the out of bounds angels, poets with visionary limbs, the manifesting ultra pisces, the old woman in the purple jacket’s hand on my canary sweater, and her fine hands holding my head, my knees, this hound, that child.

Blossom

Dorianne Laux -1952

What is a wound but a flower

dying on its descent to the earth,

bag of scent filled with war, forest,

torches, some trouble that befell

now over and done. A wound is a fire

sinking into itself. The tinder serves

only so long, the log holds on

and still it gives up, collapses

into its bed of ashes and sand. I burned

my hand cooking over a low flame,

that flame now alive under my skin,

the smell not unpleasant, the wound

beautiful as a full-blown peony.

Say goodbye to disaster. Shake hands

with the unknown, what becomes

of us once we’ve been torn apart

and returned to our future, naked

and small, sewn back together

scar by scar.