Val D. Conder

DARK EDGES

Wind whips snow around corners
desire lending purpose to our lives
as we check our Christmas list,
the list of a little boy
in the Children’s Suicide Center,

remembering his tousled black hair,
chubby freckled cheeks, green eyes,
windows to a scarred soul,
the striped blue shirt he loves to wear
over the darkness inside,

thinking of children whose lives
are focused by unknown causes
on leaving this world, and praying,
touching the bright packages,
love may lead them back
from the dark edges in their hearts,

for there are good things about living…
(I touch the scars on my wrists)
they may be hard to see, but
like love,
the thorn is worth the rose.

—from Rattle #26, Winter 2006