The Raveled Sleave of Care

Matted cotton wad
dog clumps on that blanket
remind me of our sweat-wet days,
green with grass stains,

of chucking a cow patty
in an arch long as time,
dry as a lump of treebark
to shatter, silently, across your back.

Matted wet towels
remind me of that poolhouse
where I made you
blueberry pancakes

(the mix rustled up
fresh from a dumpster dive)
and you snatched them off the plate
with two hands, like little flat sandwiches.

Matted knots
in my daughter’s hair
remind me of snorting full well
your baby locks,

pinching your fat cheeks,
my head nestled next to yours
I’d feel the heat and
wonder what kind of fireflies lived in there.

Matted earbuds,
like a white, wire hairball,
pulled from my pockets by that asshole
security guard at Walmart:

Too busy trying to save the world
from petty crime
that he failed to realise
that’s exactly what he was committing.

Matted knots of time.
The powerful play going on regardless, 
the verses
all writing themselves.

Watch it in reverse, and it
is and was and will be overwritten
over and over again
on this palimpsest of tom-foolery
that is life.

Matted balled up life,
unravelable,
unravels anyway.