The joining

I like all things vernal,
lime-green, new

unfurling like a trill
from the throat of a nightingale.

I feel like the apple of the eye
of the world, and still these words

are an approximation while my identity
is being reshuffled, Inanna to Ishtar,

syncretisation. The withered grass
feeds the young. I was never

the shining torchbearer of a precocious generation,
my winter self, longing for band-aids and lollipops,

the simple solutions to young hurts.
While a dirty neon bruise cruises behind the distant canopy,

even in the lime-green light I am a clowder of cats
in the henhouse with a cudgel.

Didn’t I tell you,
I don’t do subtle in this season.

But hope springs eternal in my breast too.
All vernal things I wish for.