It starts with the heart’s pulse

womb’s embrace

nourishment from other as if self

before we’re spit into this slip slap of blue

deafening white

indifferent ground that shatters bone

if we fall too long

too hard

yet sometimes hands, like whispers,

rustle through loss’s deep well

to retrieve silken strands

rewoven then into something like wings

that expand beyond the contraction of loss

and whisper through the dark

you are not alone.

Thank you to the editors of 5AM for first publishing this poem.