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