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Some things have to come out,
he’d say, a sack full of stones
or the growth on your forehead
obscuring your sight.
But some things are better left
to carry until you die,
the bloodred liver, for instance,
overrun with flowering buds.
He kept that
pressed near his heart,
a thorny bush
spreading branches inside.
It stayed, in situ, with the rest,
his blighted knee, his hands,
his piercing intellect,
his untameable hair.
All of it burned
in the great fire,
and then we scattered him
among the roses.