Androcles 

i watch dad 
remove a splint from his thumb
as he sits at the kitchen table 
with the old
wilting tweezers & bowl of salt water 
which he claims with loosen the sliver--
the small thin wood 
embedded in his flesh.
i consider what would happen 
if the splinter  
is actually a root. 
a whole tree might climb
from my father's hand 
before the next morning
& he will have to walk around 
with a sapling
spilling from his hand. we'd listen for
the soft rustling of leaves to let us know
he's moving around the house. our father
& his pain & his fingers & his emerging forest.
the sapling would then become 
a large full tree in our living room 
& we'd have to uproot it together.
we'd need shovels. we'd need more than a bowl 
of water. we'd need to wake up our uncle 
& ask to borrow his wheel barrow. 
i'm scared of 
having to save anyone like that. 
in the white 
bathroom light i inspect my own hands
for signs of splinters, 
traversing each thumb
& the valleys between fingers. i'm terrified
of finding one while downstairs my father 
becomes a tree. if we both become trees 
who will fix us? in the bathroom 
i consider that it might not be terrible
to be a tree with my father. we might
find more time
to talk to each other. i might tell him
more about softball & more about
a new friend i made at the park &
ask him what shade of blue he prefers 
& when he got his first splinter
& who removed it. we remind me 
of lions & their tendency to acquire
thorns in their paws in myths.
i become a lion upstairs without a splinter
& i listen to my family's muffled voices 
down stairs where my father still works 
on his hand, pressing the skin 
till it's raw & soft red. he is also 
a lion & no one else but me notices.
i want to remove the thorn 
but he'd never let me help him
like that so i watch 
as the tree grows so large it blocks out
the lights in the kitchen.