We did not know what to do
with lost teeth and nail trimmings,
with curling locks of snipped hair,
so we buried them. They grew
into the things we kept inside us.
Did you know
that a worry makes mold,
and that hate is a red berry
full of thorns?
His child eyes like brown acorns,
his toenails grew into an oak tree.
We sat in its shade, and birds
made nests in its branches—
a thing so full of good,
a new being, a part of him.