You want to enter my garden
to stroll barefoot
on morning dew-brushed grass

scent the redolence
of morning glories
opened by dawn’s first light

and dip your cup
in sunlit shimmering brook
to nourish your parched tender mouth.

If you want to enter my garden
you must enter
my cave where dank air

is smoldering with the stench
of childhood
abandonment and grief

and smear your naked body
with the acidic dust
of terror and despair.

Then you will discover
a child’s school lunch box
containing shards of a ceramic Jesus

four tiger-eye marbles
a plastic whistle
from a Cracker Jacks box

and words scribbled
on the inside
of a candy wrapper

“I Am Beautiful Just the Way I Am.”