Look what I have in my hand:
a slender silver tweezer
blackened by thirty years.
I still feel the ground under my back,
the heat of the little red star.
But now I’m old enough to tell my friend
about those days of growing-pain
in a way that makes her laugh.
I wished for a love that would take me
from my parents’ house, and I got it.
Later I wished that that love
had not done me so much damage.
Why then have I saved its artifact?
Diminutive stab of grief.
Strange keepsake.
