
intimate exchanges
a pinewood trailer park bedroom door held my tiny fists pounding fury.
no myth or magic present when I visited her the other day,
lungs full of fire & scream. Eyes closed, sitting in a
chair in my therapist's office, I held my younger self in my arms
for brief comfort after a life of abandoned anger. I have all
the skills I need to re-parent but I don't usually know how to find
her. And it doesn't matter how much wildflower nectar I soak in,
there is no soothe to be found for me in anthomania. Even
still, sunstruck meadows remain my mind's safeplace for divine encounters.
Holy ground gives refuge for sunflowers stretched t'wards the light. The Ukranian
word for strength is tattooed on my upper back while in another time
zone, my homelands are obliterated, my ancestral people stripped
of life & liberty. I'd sob relentlessly, powerless to genetic
grief, but Covid has reignited my lungs fire and stolen my breath.