Wearing the Skin

Sometimes I hum as I wield the knife

over the rind of a potato, over the coarse

grain holding in the sweet gold of a squash.

Some mornings when I wake and feel the old 

familiar tendrils of that unshakeable 

sadness brush against my cheeks, I want 

to curl back into the shape of my own 

skin. It takes tenderness to peel away 

what held you so long in the dark. 

And so, much as I admire the self-

containment of the daikon, also 

I can't help loving how it's blushed 

with the palest stroke of green.