atom

what a thing to is it
to wake your hope
after years

i raise my hands and hover
across my clavicle,
sternum, hips, looking for
the strings. what is this force lifting
me from my knees, up &
into the dazzling ease of
walking next to
you?

what a thing it is, to witness
the kind of trust which
devastates every old wound

the peace rising like steam
up the handprints on the cabinets

what a thing to fall and feel
the petal of your body settle

what a marvel, your love.
how it took your amber smile to find
the last hook & unclasp me

so many years spent chasing the
summer, hands outstretched for the first
flash of feeling. how strange, now, to feel
more free in the perennial of our front steps.

in truth, it is no small thing to believe in
you- the lark who sings in
colours i was raised not to see.
i breathe deeply now, asleep in your song, but
keep a candle on the sill for my first self:
a woman raised on the milk of
melancholy & so carved her own
native tongue

taught to build an altar from
the absence of equal footing in love
to fell the woodwork on which to hold only
half empty glass.

gifted a bright and
crackling legacy which sang
to be a woman is to spill over the edges
to have more to give than there are hands to hold you
a raw refrain of
hold yourself, instead.
each evening, i scatter these
singed words across the
heather and lace my fingers in yours.

if they ask us, i will tell them this is
the moment i split the atom
bared down on my own alchemy.
unspooled and made hope with my
bare hands.