To a Green Shoot, Sprouting From the Concrete

To a Green Shoot, Sprouting From the Concrete

I was going to write to someone I love.
Send her another picture of you,
like a different angle would help:
striving against concrete like the air
between us
when there is nothing I can say so she
will understand.
For years I ate black earth
from shining metal trays, thinking
it was food,
taking, instead
the soil from your garden.
Forgive me for the mounds of earth
scraped from your concrete.
Forgive me for not writing this to her,
yet.

I was going to write to
someone I love,
instead I am trying
to scrape more earth towards you, no—
to stand beside you as you reach through your roots
and quivering fresh branches
to take it for yourself.

So long as you wash the dirt
from your hands,
she says.

—It is not the dirt that is the problem.
It is the blood.—

My hands are clean,
she replies.

Perhaps, but careful how tightly you grip
the concrete,
I tell her
(as you would,
I hope)—
you might just crush a
growing seed—

Kidding, of course.
It's alright, just keep
your hands off the leaves,
disintegrating
like broken promises.