Old Valentine

Don't forget I’m a naturalist
of quarreling things

let them carry on to get along

limited as we are to this world

 its harsh and tender skies

but I think we took nature somehow

 a wrong turn into ourselves

and what works innocently

 on the outside

not so much on the inside see

 where we’re torn apart

and flayed and lifted up

 always promising ourselves

just one more middle passage.