I dream of the pruning shear.
And the wood unmoored,
And the fulgent buds as they fall.
I come upon a hand of shading fingers
Where one will suffice,
A crone’s polydactyly.
The chink of shear, and the weep at the reaping.
The blood tastes
Of sweet clean water. On the shearing hand,
It bleeds.
The left one finds the sun.
I dream of the pruning shear.
What of the lurid life?
Of the unsustainable and the pedestrian?
A cut feels wrong but
Thinks of the requisite.
Inequity
Has its place. It is not here,
Where more lessens the outgrowth, and makes
Less of the thoughtful lessening.
I dream of the pruning shear.