Unaware

When you are two and five and ten
you are unaware ––
of the cactus in the windowsill,
how, fragile, each quill bends
and breaks and falls apart.––

Twelve years later, on a Tuesday,
you dream about a boy
who bumps his head
on an iron slate and you wake
in a cold sweat.

You are twelve when you are
always bumping shoulders.

Twenty-two years of Thursday.
There is nothing at all.
And you wonder (and
you wonder why)
each time you wake.

The cactus in the window bleeds
with you when you bump it.
No one ever mentioned
frightened things bite.
So you have always been unaware.