We are bleached sidewalks in the sun
cracks counted in innocent fun
careless feet as deadly as guns
“your mother’s done, your mother’s done!”

Oft young words will burrow inside
find a cozy place to reside
in the cracks where even light hides;
from there it bides, from there it bides.

Seeds that use the darkness to grow
stretch their roots out and far below
where we break with more cracks to show
and so it goes, and so it goes.

When weeds like these we do impart
they cause our reason to depart;
if we take them too close to heart,
rend us apart, rend us apart.

Catch those seeds as soon as they fall
give them kindness in which to sprawl
and ask their source if they recall
their own downfall, their own downfall.

What seeds in them took root within
broke their spirit like newborn skin
and let them know it’s not a sin,
to start again, to start again.