Poison Oak

The spiders and the snakes you’ve known me
For at least a dozen centuries
They know my poison’s always at the surface
In the bottom of the shadowed canyons
Is where I grow without companions
For what I want you’d only be superfluous
You can call all those like these defensive
Who hear your claims and then seem apprehensive
But if all the folks who touch him are against him
Then he’ll spread his oil on each and every one
There are men who do not blossom in expression
I’ve watched them live and I’ve never seen confessions
It’s who they are that speaks to those who listen
And it’s just their leaves that glisten in the sun
There are days when I am sad and cold and callous
There are days when I get mad at even Alice
But she’s welcome like a body into soil
Like whiskers rising to the barber’s towel
But she gets too close and then defense swallows reason
And she’s the skin and I am the oil
She’s the naked skin and I am the oil