collected poems

iii. dissection at dusk

we are at that point of the day where we almost trip
on the dip in the pavement,
where the tree grows up and out like a small-town singer,
where it pushes its roots under our tired feet and the concrete.

it's almost purple-dark and i just want to take you home--
that is, show you my living room,
play a song i learned on the piano,
point out which baby in the pictures is me--

i'd like to open up my life to you,
like stretching branches, like unfurled fists;
i just want you to see the color of my walls
and the way my mother seems to get younger when she laughs.