Sonnet for Spring

there’s honeysuckle in the exhaust, a fine green 
beard between walks, spring softens us 
again, now we confess the earth is a drum 
encased in living skin, not concrete, 
it’s harder to forget the beat of boots on skin, 
and yet we forget as hut-dwellers in the shade 
of giant missiles forget, long enough to live. 

forgetting doesn’t mean we don’t remember. 

daily we avoid small obstacles and wait 
our turn, we forget who burned, who burns, 
who still knows the crunch of a fist on her face 
and the unwelcome thrust, we need a newborn jazz 
to sing out the forgotten, we meet the boots 
on mutual ground and agree we all are barefoot. 
walking home, we smell the honeysuckle and at 

skies’ edge we glimpse the lift of shining wings.