Dirt
sometimes it surprises me
how much dirt gets under my fingernails
the deep browns the flat blacks
the urgent yells of green grime
but I secretly love the two-step process
of burrowing a nail under a nail
and scraping out the grot then
scraping out the grot again –
the small collection of yuck
how it lands on my lap
how I wave it off into
the detritus
of the day
VANESSA SHIELDS 