Loss & Wet (The Month of March)

Loss peers out through the bars

of your ribs, peeking, pounding,

demanding to be let out or break its cage.

And so you breathe;

in.

out.

and in,

and out,

The only way you know.

You let the pounding become the rhythm

of the song you sing on the way to work, the wheels

churning, tires gripping, and

releasing, pavement, spinning,

running, the pump of one leg then another,

moving you forward, the sheen of sweat

building, the soft pulse of tears

leaking as you smile and the warmth of sun

glancing your cheeks,

gathering a new season's freckles.  

Loss becomes a weight that grounds you.

As you walk through the woods the leaves

kick up, uncovered from the winter’s frost,

browned and damp and carpeted --

soft and feeling, like you.

They are not new, not yet.

You keep walking. You keep waking.

The sun comes up.

Some days you see it happen, peeking out

over the bar of the horizon,

but most days you just trust it to be there.

Every day you know yourself, the ground

beneath you, the slickness of your own body

in the shower and the slip

of mud under your boot the way it grabs

and lets go at the same time.

Wet is the cure, you realize,

wet is the magic that birthed you

and this world

that lets Loss find a physical hold,

let's Joy and Beauty stick.

Your ribcage will never be empty,

never be dry,

will always be pounding and pushing and

asking, and you can

let it be wet or

waste yourself trying to dry.

Learn to breathe underwater --

scream along with the pounding

and love the sound

of your own voice bouncing

off the soaking canyon of your heart.

Christie Flemming