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.