No one will hear this, I say, to make it true

by | Apr 5, 2022 | Issue Twenty Six, Poetry

Under his covers, my youngest turns.  Says he can’t sleep. His face looks like mine. You’d have a hard time telling who’s who, save his blond hair. He likes to watch me write in cursive, so I take a sheet of paper and write I love you.  I was his age when my grandfather taught me how to write my name. The hand has more control than the mouth. Your brain and hand work by delay.  Slow to anger, they teach in Sunday School. Edit as you go. My cousin Bree had cancer in her blood. It killed her in one day. Blood ran the wrong way through my body. I had a hole in my heart and was tired. A surgeon darned the hole. I love you, I write again. His eyes doze. If you could walk through arteries, you would hear your own voice, muffled as though underwater. Listen, I write.  Inside is a call to your own life; the sound, distorted. My darling, follow. Know the exit, then go.

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