Come as You Are - Sande Anfang

[Larry Robinson]

Come as You Are

Come to the party;
wear your blanched jeans
sun-seared to silk 
an arranged marriage of rock and knee.

Bring your piano hands
burnished with soil,
your compost-painted fingernails 
cupping a mug to keep you warm.

May truth roll from your tongue,
your breath bear pale green words
stained with sour grass
your chin a looking glass for buttercups.

Bring your perfumed breath
essence of onion and honest sweat
simmered in the field of communal toil
back bent like the winter birch.

Don't forget your coal-daubed feet
fresh from the ashes
stories secreted
in the knotholes of your toes.

Bring your hair, dandelion-twined
spider webs that ride your cuffs
sow bug and dung beetle
dreaming in the pocket of your grandma's apron.

Pack your wind-chiseled heart
with its needlepoint of scars.
Don't clean up
come as you are.
 
 	- Sande Anfang