finding my first pussywillow
probably won’t match
your first moment with yours
six years old colorless
March day upstate New York
I was waiting for this gray
furry caterpillar to move
after I bent and released
the naked branch a couple times
no one told me
this was life emerging
from a long-wintering tree
just like they hadn’t told me
childhood was a bubble
that the world would soon pierce
or that I’d build walls around me
for protection and survive wounds
that would hurt more inside than out
and they certainly
couldn’t use the pussywillow
to explain that something
as soft and harmless as love
could grow beyond the clouds
and outshine the sun
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