If I could wash the blood stripes

 

from your toddler days

 

I would wipe them away.

 

If I could purge “fat kid”

 

from your memory

 

I would make it so.

 

And the demons? 

 

I’d banish them

 

to desolation.

 

If I had the power

 

I would free your mother

 

from bondage to neediness

 

and your father from slavery,

 

but all I can do now is say,

 

I believe you are

 

a Phoenix.