Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Briar

A friend betrayed me yesterday. I loved him 

for his rage, hungers & big flat feet he stomped 

.

as if he wanted to leave imprints everywhere 

he went. I never told him how his stomping moved me, 

.

the same way this blooming briar does, waving

in the rush & dust of the highway off-ramp.

.

My friend betrayed me for a fast mark, a few gasps 

around a spilled secret, no bigger than a briar’s thorn. 

.

I’m one of the cars the ramp jams into town, & because 

it would cause horn-blasting rage, & because 

.

for each betrayal we lose a little fervor, I don’t 

reach to tear a flower from the briar to keep in a book — 

.

his book — that he signed Yours, always. Lost 

secrets, friends, fervors — we are made of this dust. 

.

Let briars grow from it, & bloom.

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Copyright 2019 Laure-Anne Bosselaar. First published in Small Gods of Grief  (BOA Editions). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.