Sticks and Stones, and Names Can Hurt Us Too

                               It is a labor of love                       Like poems hid away,

                               (and labor to love)                       With clumsy words

                               The broken child                          And awkward rhyme

                               Conceived in love,                        Yet these rough works

                               And borne in hope,                       Can speak to me

                               But, struggling….                           If I allow them to

                               My labor’s pain                              I’m looking past

                               Is that I treat                                 Cadence and rhythm

                               But cannot heal                              And disguises children wear

                               The bones and nerves                    Like looking past

                               And misformed parts                      Van Gogh’ strokes

                               That cannot be remade                   To see the lonely night

                               But still I see                                   I see messages in poems

                               Their human souls                           And songs in children’s hearts

                               Trapped here in twisted form           About our life, and love