slivers raze as a child i was prone to picking up pieces of almost everything i touched. crumb of coffee table. wisp of outer bark. peel of paint stirring stick. when some small segment of a shedding object's soul slid past the thin veneer of one fragile fingertip, my mother would sit me on her lap and dig it out with a sewing needle. in the sharpness of that sting i thought i knew her unspun love, if only for as long as it took to free what was foreign from the fortress of my flesh. 250430 what's it to you? who go blather from