Mend

I write eighty-

two miles from where I think

you may be aftermathing 

from some form of holiday

as I am from my birth-

place where (oh where)

my wind-broken child-

hood seemed unlike yours, and you 

don't know me, you would need self-

selected distance from how it was and how it felt, 

the blend of loving authoritarian protective kindness 

of the one plus the more liberating but broken other 

shining intellect who knew my tenderly hurt insides 

that appeared in full regalia practiced in park 

poked through with stiletto feats at center 

leaving home without the sandstone and decibels 

hushed together in windows closer than comfort 

to bray some lovelorn hillbilly makeshift welter 

of surreptitious sunshine hiding someplace else.