Thistle or A Snakeskin Found
by PB
I found your skin this morning, Lucifer,
Papery, dead, in a forest of fiddlehead fern.
You were there. You left it for me, turned
And twisted on a thistle's purple crown.
Such was the blossom you gave me once,
The one I loved until it spread and brought in
Every snapping, black-capped bird
And choked off sprigs that might have grown instead.
And there was nothing ever to be said
Nor thought nor done nor writ nor planned,
But only each stalk to be held in bleeding hands,
And like a loose skinned and indifferent man
To root each grasping bastard up
And cast it dead upon the land.
I found your skin today, old foe,
In a forest of fiddlehead fern.
And all I've ever wanted to know
Is where a child of God may turn.