Briars

When you ask what I’ve been writing

and I laugh

I mean just this:

I have not been bearing witness

or gingerly assembling any pieces

or holding quiet space.

I have not been doing The Work.

I have been skimming my eyes over only the surface of things

catching the burrs and briars that wait there

believing that the sting of their niggling prickle is something real to carry around,

until they are tumbleweeds between my ribs

and I can bellow

Look at these thorns in my life! 

And you kindly acknowledge them between squinted eyes

though you know there is nothing there.