There is still time

          to grow Momma’s high-

throated laugh, her prickly

          skin as if to say the world

may not touch me

          here and here and here,

I do not understand

          I have been made to grow

into a tree with color—

          pink blossoms shrinking

only once I confess how

          I let November touch me—

until I’ve already done so. Then

          again, are a few colorful months

all I have to offer? I didn’t

          spot the telltale signs of sin

until they were already snaking

          up my back. There is no color,

I’ve realized, I cannot capture

          for my own pleasure, no quiet

man I cannot be. I am truthfully

          barren until I ask to be filled:

with night, if you please—

          and June, and night, with a pinch

of dark. Then I am so skintight

          or would the correct word

be skinfree? Because I am standing

          behind part of my body

and the night-wind gallops

          and laughs and gallops away

with the rest. So dark, I doubt

          there will ever come another

morning, and it doesn’t come

          until I’ve already given

all my trust to the trees, though

          really, every body is the same,

so what is there to protect? Even when

          there is more to my life

than a postcard of its season—

          there is only a flash

followed by the faithless

          dark. The sky goes

limp, the night a dress

          to be worn. Across my face

a single lightning rod remains.