Grown-up
You best know I can yell at my cravings by their Sunday names.
Can't walk in the world like the undamaged do.
There are graves in my garden.
Chopped off, my hands grow back middle digit first,
I’m bramble-grown, shoving thorns into gaps to get stuck.
Rose-grown, blurting out sun colours, untidy.
Comfrey-grown, bristled, stubborn, unfurling knives from a
nub of gristle so the bees don't starve. I'm stones
in the alley between my friends' lives.
I’m grown but I can't save myself nor you neither,
but I'll be out here, calling the names of the stars I see
in case anyone needs them.
- Phyllis M