Lean Into the Kiss

He kisses me. It has been one year, one month and three days since I have been kissed — following a marriage in which I was told my body was not worthy of touch, and my emotions were too, well, emotional to warrant attention. We are colleagues who happen to be stepping out into the night from a holiday work … Read More

Cherish the Last Trimester

I considered my son’s first three months in the world to be his fourth trimester. He was no longer inhabiting my body, yet he was still between worlds — and we were bound to each other in a sweet and private delirium that belonged entirely to us. In this way, the first three months of my breakup with Pete were … Read More

Algorithm

Gravity borrows her name from the bird who stopped trying. He said the poem was a hinge, that a bird fell into her womb from the well. There is no law that can convince me otherwise. Call in the scientists if you must and name their theories after themselves. Our entire lives, after all, are comprised of the world looking … Read More

Tell a New Story About an Old Pattern

Pete picks me up from the airport with our three-year-old son. He tells me they have just shared cookies—which my son has never in his life been allowed to eat due to a gluten sensitivity. Evidently, Pete has forgotten this primary piece of information. When we were married, this kind of mistake was symbolic to me. It represented the ways … Read More

Until One Day

When the heart is not yet ready, you can send the body in first. Make it strong. Let it be soft. Give it sleep and baths and forest. Let your heart be a passenger in this strange chariot, this powerful vessel you are becoming. Your circuitry of joy will stir from its slumber in its own time. Until one day, … Read More

You Will Find Your Way

Whatever it is you fear you cannot do that needs doing, you will find a way to do. Maybe you will find someone else to help you do it. Or, perhaps you will find that it didn’t actually need doing after all. One way or another, you will climb or penetrate or blow up the impossible obstacle you are facing … Read More