Civilization

He likes to give his mother
the flower of the dogwood tree
every year. It blooms, first

on her birthday, even in
the coldest Aprils.
There, on the hill beside

the new house, halfway up the
magnolia whose arms he always wants
to sleep in. Because they reach

all ways, like his mother’s, even
to the sun. Sleeping beside her
his hair is steeped in spring-dust roughed

into his atoms. Sepal wind jump
starting spring every year. From
the dogwood to the green ground

to the thawing. How it wakes
the world. Un-seen
from the window, dogwood

petals float down freckled
red every year.

Reminding the child of a story,
of a man on a cross. How
he hung - oblate, an outline,

rising to heaven unharmed,
smiling with the weight
of small sins. Caught between
the sky and his palm. This is the blood,

he says - laying a finger
on the red dots that
mar white-paper whorls.

This is the blood, he says
skipping away, crushing
the petals in his palm.