Crackling old records and tangled old tapes make up

our tough onion skin and the rings that hold us together

but they don’t have to. We can discard them like leaflets

that promise prosperity or jars of snake oil we’ve stacked

in our cupboards for nearly a lifetime.

Come as you are, I said, but I guessed you wouldn’t. Too pungent ,

you’d think, to crack that rib cage open and reveal your rotten heart.

You wouldn’t want to make the eyes water or the delicate ones scatter,

but I am not so delicate. I know what you call rotten

is just something deep and wounded, and the color comes

from what you’ve used to hide it – it is your mineral rich mussel shell

and it is beautiful to me. Put your warts on display, I won’t run.

I will trace the lines of your scars with tender fingertips and new promises.

I will not give you new ones in between professions of love

and pride in being loved. I will offer to you a balm for all the ugly things

you think you are, and that is love. Applied generously

in all those fortified places of yours that no one has ever seen.

Come as you are, I said, and you did.

Please make sure you stay long enough to sprout

into something obstinate and green.

© Tina Zabielski 2011-2019