Inside

No longer tied toe to toe, elbow to elbow,
Back bone to the flat plank,
The curve of spine in murk,
No longer matters.

The shoots of new growth
Up through meaty ribs and blackened soil,
The night cedes no oils so
This earthy hummus has come from below.

Below your neck tie or shoe lace
Are so many reasons to be humble.
Be not proud, but rubbing dirt,
Be not ashamed.

Laughing stocks lined up on the docks
With the workers arms and the daisy chains
Imagined to sprout from each belly button,
New.

Each timid face rubbed clean as a plate,
Soft as the bell trailing its ringer from over the hill.
Each day marked until it is a battlefield of
Pock marked dead or a theater full of customers.

Tend to their tender needs,
Toes in socks, in shoes, in the idea of shoes
Walking over paver bricks or up the mountainside
To the sky.

Up the other side to her funerary wreaths,
Woven, presented as the lap of a dress,
The hem dragging ground, the ribbons and ties
A flounce around the waist of skin, the circulation,
The idea of a woman playing a violin.

Rote, corrected, internalized, the message is a skill
She learned to decipher from the music
As a part of herself, a touch stone to ourselves,
What we are really interested in when we come inside.