Grow Some Spine

There are locust trees in my living room. 

Honey-locusts, leaves a golden yellow,

Dripping down sunlight like honey on the eye

Enticing, at a distance, honeyed hive to wasp’s nest

When the leaves are lost, branches brought bare

The hounds will prick their tongues on the thorns.

 

Honey-locusts have the gnarliest thorns,

Bundles of needling spines cover the bark, no room

For love or affection, my raw skin bare 

And chapped, weaned off a bosom thorny and yellow.

The rotted-out heart serving only as a nest

I don’t have either of my parents' eyes.

 

I bristle when they catch my eye

But I can’t scorn their thorns

They grew when I know what nasty nests

Were made, what brutish birds carved out room 

In the heart wood, holding yellow

Intentions till they saw the branches were bare.

 

Living close to the thorns makes you bare.

Bare hands, bare teeth, look em in the eye,

Teeth don’t need to be white, bones are yellow, 

Living with locust trees makes you grow thorns.

You’ll bristle with thistles, you’ll make the room.

Empty it enough, your head’ll buzz like a hornet’s nest.

 

Skewering growths ensure there’s never an empty nest

Though that’d be best, they’ve been bare 

For years, there’s no more seedpods in the bed room

Hell they can’t even see eye to eye.

Birds in the bush cost less than a bird on the thorn,

But there’s no more birdsong, no more honey, no more yellow.

 

In my youth, the gnarled tree sprayed pollen thick and yellow

Then lightning broke his limbs, smoked his core, blew away the nest;

That’s when the house filled with thorns.

Cracks and splits like his body unzipped itself, bare 

Skin flash fried firewood, blue eyes 

Running mazes in empty rooms.