in a root of speed

where tree ring limbs 

sprouted through my boyhood’s 

bed frame confinement.

The door opened to you 

spotting my boysenberries 

bursting within a box 

of adolescent air. 

         Oh My

dropped from your lips 

like construction bricks. 

I of course draped 

nature’s exposure 

under my blue-earth blanket. 

Can we devour this memory

like inhaling a maple branch? 

Father’s Sunday pancake 

muscled out a breakfast welcome

under the bathroom frame,

my juice squirming

down our hungry drain. 

Forthcoming in Still Human (2025)