The Parable of the Blade of Grass

                  Where the fire enters
a city of small doors, a city
of one blade of grass, a city
where the fire enters, where
the children on their hands
and knees lick the stones
of the street and the mice gather
in the square with the others
to watch the one blade of grass,
where old men whisper
in their hands, a city where the old
women move their skirts against
their thighs to remind themselves
of their own flesh, and what flesh
can do for a city, for a fire,
where a couple not from the city,
not blue-veined, but full of flesh,
watch the town gather around the blade
of grass, watch them offer their eyes,
watch them heap stones around their fire,
this couple not from this city,
not flattened by the heat
or the dust watch the children
crawl to the edge of the blade
of grass and offer their young tongues,
in this city where the fire enters,
the two not of the city walk
to the children, step over their hunched
backs and dirt-stained lips, past the edge
and pluck the flower from the fire,
from this city, in this city where
fire enters through a hush of flesh,
the couple not of the city snap
the blade of grass in two
and place it in each other’s mouth     watch
them eat a fire watch the children grow
legs below the knees     watch the old men
kiss the old women behind the house walls.
Love is when you hear the flood coming.


-- Roger Reeves (1980- ), African American poet and professor of poetry at the University of Illinois, Chicago