M. Crabtree
calves where ice-blank smoothness
met my eyes before. Not since
age twelve were my legs thus
adorned with dark, thick hair so
long it curls upon itself. Why
grow hair now? My friends ask.
It has something to do with
tenderness, I say. These
legs deserve a rest after
almost forty years of
being daily scraped, sometimes
hastily, brutally, almost
always thoughtlessly, into
someone else's idea of
beauty. My neighbor concludes
the same about his lawn: no more
harsh chemicals, grass mowed to
within an inch of its roots.
Let it grow, let it luxuriate
au naturel. My legs, his lawn:
we are about reforestation,
he and I, reclaiming the wild, pre-
serving the native state of things.
