Likestarlings

The willow-ring

He threw me out of the house, saying there was no room
now I was eight foot tall. I gagged

I couldn’t believe it, staring after his turned back
his red apeneck, his slate-blue slacks. I’d thought that blood

was thicker than mortar. So dressed up in camo and green
I went lolloping down to the riverbank

flopped there in the grass, still shaking, for hours,
it seemed the safest way, with vultures about

my little heart going pitter-pat, he said stop.
Look around you. He’d followed me out.

What do you see? Showed me in the lap of green
a semi-circle of bright willow-poles,

roots that had suckered, and sprung
like the vast pale ring around the full moon.

But remember, the true trunk dies.
Can we live, in what we do or make?

Scattering threads of code
that burrow into the future and carry us on.