Spring blood
rises in dark
bark of dog-
wood trees;
their crooked
fingers flex
at the warmth.
Knuckles crack,
fall off, off,
down to pile-
drive into mud
flash-frosted
with other
such sticks.
Building grounds-
men rake
them into
a mockery
of falls,
summers, stunned
by the volume.
Squirrels jump,
shake shattered
copses, scatter
un-hoarding seeds
of September
with shivers
of March.
Keith David Parsons is a person who came from West Virginia, lives in Washington, DC and is less conflicted about it than you might think. Believes a poem without a message is like a big hole without spikes at the bottom—why would you dig it? Member of DC Poetry Collective; featured in iNK BLOTS Vols. 1, 2.