Family Counseling

When the last caustic touch of

the skin hissed on our tongue

to poison us,

we erased the word bite

with a softer language of

good time for killing the snakes

mowing our grassy green lawns

taller roses for shorter thistles of

cutting sharp talk, rewinding us

to kinder beginnings

marching off to family counseling

as all of our conversational sharks

fed on tiny fishes of ocean seaweed

hurt leading time to swallow the water

we were thirsty, with therapeutic dry wells of

hope, becoming one again as we were meant to be

a family that survives.