I didn't mean to kill you

I didn’t mean to kill you

but a blade of grass shouldn’t pierced your heart,
nor should a flower thieve the sense
of phantom you share with headstone.
After all, what is this place we speak of,
this world of hammer and luxury?
Is it not a facade of sweat and wrinkled brow,
a keepsake at a rummage sale?
Do the merchants not stare at you
from the box in your dying room?
I do not know, but I didn’t mean to kill you.
I didn’t mean to bring the remnants
of your iris to this motif of thatch and straw;
to draw you in only to lay you down
on the anxieties of nest and rocking cradle.
There is too much going on
to argue growing flowers,
I meant only to exalt you over farm
and plough, above the robot arms and factories
desecrating your fable. You only need
to be reminded, stirred just a little,
you are not your tools, you are not your origins,
you are not what the science books say,
you happened after language
And I didn’t mean to kill you.