Thorn
Everything dies. Without you
I saw one million flamingos
ignite a lake in Africa.
The same darkness
descended everywhere.
When you dropped your body,
I hoped you would tremble
for the beak of God.
Why did we wash you three times
tearing off the girl’s white dress
to swaddle you in an austere shroud?
Some say, dying, not death, teaches.
You gained nothing
from that reduction.
Months in the narrow foxhole of disease–
you dug it; we filled it in.
My father is thin as you were
in his hospital bed,
both of you let everything go,
care for nothing
except that barbed hook–
life.
It grabbed you like a thorn
until you begged me, “Pull it out.”
Copyright Credit: Deena Metzger, "Thorn" from Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2009 by Deena Metzger. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press.