Your Gift
by Cassie McDaniel
You pinned me down and gave me something
I didn't know I needed –
Short glances, respectful naked distance
laughter after the gun smoke and sounds
glorious sounds: like television
I move past the despise and learn more
about loving life than I had ever loved in practice.
So you gave me sound and told me to sit still
While I filled every available cavity with dark
rich soil. Planted seeds and waited. “Grow grow grow”
we together chanted. You played the ukulele
in gentle insistence. Something
crept upward, the solid nut, the noun, the core,
and lodged forever in the hollow of my hands.