I’ll name myself moss rock

by ROBIN GOW 

and you’ll feel that green
            as you brush your hand against
            my face,          my cheek.
Stubble now soft,
the bones of a rock.

Where my beard
            grew back bristly
            each morning

now flowerless plant,
            simple leaves
            a live carpet

to lay down on
when no pillows
bloom              from dirt.

I think of the back wall
of our stone garage
            and the patch of yard there
            where each year we said
            we should build a garden

how we never planted a garden
and the moss came in thick

            bold and gentle;
            green downy cartography
not lichen or hornwort
but moss.

            And I touched the moss
wondering if moss is similar
to the skin of amphibians,
            human touch a destruction

and I touched anyway
out of some inner green need,
            and all the stone wall held the moss
            like a pulpit or stage.

If that is my name then,
if that is what you call me
moss rock

            I want to ask you
            why I let moss
grow on my face instead
of hair.

What it could mean
to be a man who houses moss.

            I want you
to touch.